Support on the development of policy proposals for energy smart appliances

Under the ecodesign & energy labelling framework, some preparatory work for addressing ESA has been completed. The preparatory study^[1] established the scope for further work (i.e. selected product categories with the highest potential for demand response), validated the economic benefits that can be achieved by a large scale deployment of ESA, and proposed some generic technical requirements for those. As a general approach, the study proposed a non-mandatory measure (i.e. to help differentiate on the market the ESA and ensure their full interoperability, but not to ban ‘non-smart’ products from the market). However, the study’s conclusion is that more work is needed in order to come up with a regulatory proposal.

The main issue identified is regulating in a way that would ensure full interoperability among different products from various manufacturers. This would require compliance with a multitude of standards, some of them not yet (fully) developed. In addition, any such regulation would heavily rely on these standards (references to which might need to be included in the regulatory text), while the standards themselves are in a very rapid evolution (much faster than the regulatory cycles).

Thus, while regulation seems inappropriate, rapid technological developments could also lead to the consolidation of different product ecosystems, which will use proprietary solutions and will inherently be incompatible (i.e. not interoperable) with each other. Therefore, action could be taken by the European Commission for securing coherent development on the market, adherence of industry to open standards, and promotion of  Smart Applications REFerence (SAREF) as a general ontology^[2] underpinning product interoperability.

The work should build on the activities of the newly started InterConnect project, funded under Horizon 2020. Many relevant stakeholders are project partners, and the project itself intends to demonstrate (and develop/extend) the use of SAREF for ensuring interoperability for demand side flexibility. Thus, a natural continuation would consist of: i) developing the CoC, and ii) ensuring the adherence of a sufficient number of signatories, with enough market coverage in their fields.

Stakeholders (industry, NGOs, academia) and Member States authorities will be involved in the process at different stages do discuss draft documents and proposals. Involvement and communication with stakeholders will be undertaken in a combination of questionnaires, webinars and physical meetings (to the extent possible in light of the COVID pandemic). The coordination of stakeholders will be carried out jointly by DG ENER and the JRC.

The JRC will complete and extend the work done, over a time of 24 months along the following issues and milestones:

1.      Creation of project website.

2.      Literature review and consolidation of input from relevant sources on the interoperability of energy smart appliances such as the InterConnect project^[3], standardisation efforts in other countries or regions (i.e. UK, California, etc.).

3.      Development of use cases for energy smart appliances.

4.      Defining the principles for data sharing among appliances, home & building automation systems, EV chargers, aggregators, DSOs. ^[4]

5.      Development of interoperability requirements for energy-smart appliances; in collaboration with external parties, such as manufacturers, etc.

6.      Setting up a CoC; drafting the CoC, consulting the stakeholders and attracting signatories

7.      Setting up methodology/laboratory procedures for the certification/conformity purposes of energy smart appliances.

The status (November 2022) of the project is showed in the next picture:

JRC supports the discussions and decisions of the Task Force with analysis and research, resulting in input documents for each of issues above. The format and structure is reviewed by DG ENER, who supervises and leads the activity.
If appropriate and in agreement with DG ENER, particular elements of the issues (6) and/or (7) above may be outsourced to external consultants with specific expertise in this area.

[4] “Energy Smart Appliances Interoperability - Analysis on Data Exchange from State-of-the-Art Use Cases”