Interactions between automated energy systems and Flexibilities brought by energy market players

Project dates:

Objective

InterFlex investigates during 36 months the INTERactions between FLEXibilities provided by energy market players and the distribution grid. This project focuses particularly on energy storage, smart charging of electric vehicles, demand response, islanding, grid automation and integration of different energy carriers (gas, heat, electricity).

Impact

• Environment: Through the optimisation of the local energy system, the project generates benefits in terms of increased energy efficiency (load shifts to off peak hours; optimized self-consumption in case of prosumers, increased awareness leading to active DSM and reduced electricity consumption), power generation optimization (peak shaving, avoiding electricity generation from carbonized peak load generation units) and increased share of renewables (optimized integration of intermittent renewable energy sources), resulting in the overall reduction of GHG emissions.
• Socio-economic: The project stimulates the development of new services for end-customers allowing for instance the development of demand response service packages for small and large consumers as well as prosumers. The provision of community storage solutions or the optimal use of multiple source flexibilities should help to decrease the electricity bill without any noticeable impact on the supply quality.
• Policy: The Use cases of the project will help to:
- formulate recommendations for micro grid operation (control schemes and observability),
- elaborate an appropriate regulatory framework for self- consumption and storage solutions (community or individual residential storage)
- provide guidelines on the participation of distributed resources in DSO operations (modifications of grid codes).

Partners

Number of partners: 1

Site numbers:

DSOs

Interactions between automated energy systems and Flexibilities brought by energy market players

Project coordinator
ENEDIS (FRANCE)
France

Key Exploitable Results

Enhanced DSO and aggregators platforms (and related interfaces) for the provision of innovative energy services for all the players in the energy market: enhanced observability, local energy control, flexibility services

SolutionTo provide innovative energy services for all the players in the energy market: to use simultaneously flexibilities from multiple sources, to trade them locally on a “Local flexibility market”, and to control them remotely (for instance through the German demo “Smart Grid Hub”).
TRL
- TRL 6 -
  technology demonstrated in relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
Final BenefitDSOs, agregators
Nature Database, Hardware, Methodology, Other, Policy, Regulation and Market, Software
Benefit of the KER
Overcome the common market barriers. Enhanced observability, local energy control, flexibility services.

Effective use:
- Collective use, Commercial use, Internal use, Open source, Other
Barriers:
- Further investment, Market conditions, No specific barrier, Other, Regulation, Scaling-up
Additional next steps:
- Cooperation with other players, Create new company to commercialize result, Demonstration, Dissemination, External certification, Further testing, Internal deployment, Other, Regulatory changes around electricity market, Regulatory changes around sharing ecosystem, Scaling-up of product, Technical and business development of product
- Scaling up the product
Investment needed:
- Uncertain

Multi-services business models for battery storage and recommendations and market organisation on running a planned and automated islanded mode

SolutionTo test residential and larger, shared battery systems to relieve network congestion, and increase the renewable hosting capacity of the grid. Recommendations for the grid codes on the observability and management of microgrids: required technologies and sensors, communication infrastructure and role description, contractual relationships for market organisation.
TRL
- TRL 6 -
  technology demonstrated in relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
Final BenefitDSOs, Aggregators, EV charging stations operators, Battery storage owners, Local Energy Supply Companies
Nature Database, Hardware, Methodology, Other, Policy, Regulation and Market, Software
Benefit of the KER
Reinforce system security, improve the distribution grid observability, solve congestion problems, while taking into account the need of EV users. Improvement of the security of supply for customers; enabling the community to support the use of the renewable energy via automated control of their residential assets.

Effective use:
- Collective use, Commercial use, Internal use, Open source, Other
Barriers:
- Further investment, Market conditions, No specific barrier, Other, Regulation, Scaling-up
Additional next steps:
- Cooperation with other players, Create new company to commercialize result, Demonstration, Dissemination, External certification, Further testing, Internal deployment, Other, Regulatory changes around electricity market, Regulatory changes around sharing ecosystem, Scaling-up of product, Technical and business development of product
Investment needed:
- Between 1 and 10 MEur

Recommendations for grid automation or control enabling the use of flexibilities to manage potential or existing DER-generated grid constraints (grid code evolutions)

SolutionTo increase DER hosting capacity thanks to using volt-var control V/Q or to using the Q(U) and P(U) characteristics of smart inverters.
TRL
- TRL 6 -
  technology demonstrated in relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
Final BenefitDSOs, Battery storage operators
Nature Database, Hardware, Methodology, Other, Policy, Regulation and Market, Software
Benefit of the KER
Increase DER hosting capacity in LV networks without the need of expenses for new interconnections and reconstruction.

Effective use:
- Collective use, Commercial use, Internal use, Open source, Other
Barriers:
- Further investment, Market conditions, No specific barrier, Other, Regulation, Scaling-up
Additional next steps:
- Cooperation with other players, Create new company to commercialize result, Demonstration, Dissemination, External certification, Further testing, Internal deployment, Other, Regulatory changes around electricity market, Regulatory changes around sharing ecosystem, Scaling-up of product, Technical and business development of product
Investment needed:
- Uncertain