Tune MPC objective weights to penalize VPP-window appliance operation more strongly

[xudongwu-0]

Problem

The current MPC objective can still select appliance schedules that overlap with the VPP event window, especially water-heater preheating such as 17:00-19:00 during an 18:00-19:00 VPP event.

This hurts role-play user scores and weakens the interpretation of MPC as a demand-response baseline.

Observed Behavior

In mpc_ep, the planner can choose:

• washer shifted outside VPP
• dishwasher shifted outside VPP
• water heater preheat overlapping VPP

The run summary then reports:

• water heater ran during VPP
• user score drops
• VPP response is considered unsatisfactory by role-play users

Why This Matters

Even when total energy or thermal comfort looks acceptable, the user and grid-side objective should strongly discourage controllable appliances from running during VPP windows.

The current objective appears to under-penalize this behavior relative to comfort/cost terms.

Possible Fixes

• Increase the VPP-window appliance-overlap penalty in the MPC objective.
• Add a stronger time-overlap penalty for controllable loads during active DR windows.
• Penalize water-heater preheat windows that cross VPP start/end.
• Distinguish unavoidable fixed loads from controllable appliance loads.
• Add diagnostic reporting for per-device VPP-overlap contribution to the MPC objective.
• Calibrate objective weights against role-play user scores and appliance shift-success metrics.

Acceptance Criteria

• MPC should avoid scheduling controllable appliances inside VPP windows unless a hard service constraint makes it unavoidable.
• Objective diagnostics should clearly show the penalty term responsible for VPP-window overlap.
• Existing benchmark summaries should make it easy to see whether the change improves VPP behavior without excessive comfort loss.