E-BALANCE

The problem space is multidimensional, but can be abstracted as a combination of social, economic and technical aspects. The e-balance project will investigate their interdependencies and propose a solution that satisfies the defined requirements.The social, economic and technical aspects will be investigated in order to achieve a mature and holistic solution.The social aspects include:- Socio-technical development (user requirements and concerns),- Different levels of user participation (involvement) and means to increase it,- Barriers to conduct an effective solution,From the economic perspective the following aspects will be considered:- Development of new business opportunities,- Economic means to increase involvement,- Legislation reinforcements and corrective measures,And the technical solution will provide the following features respecting the socio-economic aspects:- Support for all kinds of energy source and storage,- Scalable, fine grained and decentralized energy balancing and demand prediction,- Security and privacy mechanisms,- Flexible accounting,- Increased reliability.The technical solution will be based on available state of the art results and will combine them according to the socio-economical requirements with necessary adaptation.The proposed energy management platform will be evaluated in realistic scenarios using real world set-ups in Alliander microgrid in Bronsbergen and EDP Smart Grid in Portugal, as well as in emulation.In order to stimulate the exploitation of the results we will provide a guide book and tools for parties interested in using our solution, to help them to estimate the improvements they can achieve for a given deployment as well as the costs they can expect.