Innovative tools and services to manage and empower energy communities

Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Integration of home and building assets in an efficient way based on common Internet of Things (IoT) communication standards for smart homes and using SGAM architecture and data models (e.g., IEC CIM) for load, generation and storage devices;
• Facilitate local energy trading and distributed grid-oriented services using micro market and transactions (e.g., peer-to-peer) and improve the market participation for citizens;
• Enhance the integration of energy communities in European energy grids and increase the renewable energy share and use of flexibility by providing transparent and efficient market-based cost sharing mechanisms;
• Increase the security of data exchange, for prosumer and customer resources, and independent (commercial) asset operators;
• Increase synergies using a cross-sectoral approach (e.g., electricity, gas, mobility, heating/cooling) at the level of citizens and/or energy communities;
• Empower local governments and intermediaries, strengthen overall community energy policies in EU Member States and enhance tool accessibility and user capacity at local level to promote a decentralised and co-owned energy transition.

Scope

The project should:

• Develop innovative and open-source tools for managing shared energy community assets (e.g., energy storage facilities) and optimising energy community management (e.g., selection and switching of aggregators, preparation and trading of smart contracts, peer-to-peer and energy sharing, self-consumption);
• Develop open-source tools for forecasting, prediction and advanced data analysis using AI tools and in-depth data analysis for customers and prosumers for autonomous optimisation of consumption, production, storage, smart devices (appliances), and electric vehicle (EV) both at household and energy community levels;
• Extend DSO SCADA and substation systems for autonomous control of grid assets and seamlessly integrate these systems with home and building energy management systems for direct and fast control and data acquisition to implement local (distribution) grid services (constrain alleviation, grid reconfiguration, restoration of supply, maintenance, and enhancement of energy quality), real-time assessment and monetisation of the use of grid resources;
• Integrate the three elements above as a basis to establish a platform for cooperation between individual customers or prosumers, entire energy communities, wide area aggregators, and DSOs to provide, acquire, and settle energy system-oriented services (system-wide balancing, support of frequency regulation). The cooperation platform should be based on a plug-and-play integration of the energy community eco-system components (hardware and software), using and extending relevant communication standards and data models. The integration mechanism should be embedded within the core systems used by customers/prosumers, DSO (and TSO), aggregators and market operators, fully aligned with SGAM;
• Develop tailored security solutions for private and public communication networks used by IoT apps and devices (smart appliances) across energy carriers;
• Ensure the follow-up and implementation of EU policy measures, including by conducting quality assessments and introducing national community energy targets;
• Foster institutional allies at local and regional levels;
• Provide access to and capacities for using digital planning tools;
• Identify the barriers for network operators (e.g. legal, economic, regulatory etc.) who want to introduce smart consumption options for their customers.

Preferably semantically interoperable interactions, as enabled by the ETSI SAREF ontologies, are used. Furthermore, the project should follow the IEC TR 63097 Smart Grid Roadmap, and where relevant, the developed solutions should be open for off-shelf integration using common communication and data standards.

The project should benefit from the direct participation of energy communities, smart appliances manufacturers, home energy devices manufacturers, home and building energy management system developers, Distribution System Operators (DSOs), and aggregators.

However, in order to comply with Article 33, 36 and 54 of Directive (EU) 2019/944, TSOs or DSOs participating in this project should not own, develop, manage or operate energy storage facilities or recharging points for electric vehicles. Moreover, the role of the distribution system operator in facilitating peer to peer trading should be without prejudice to the rules in Article 35 Directive (EU) 2019/944.

The developed solutions have to be tested within, at least, three energy communities from different European countries, preferably in regions with different socio-economic development contexts and different resource availabilities. Technical and social characteristics should be used in the project to validate the developed solutions' credibility. The demonstration sites should cover complex and technologically advanced energy communities, each located within the range of neighbouring secondary substations supplying a variety of customers/prosumers with close-to-autarky local energy generation, a range of energy vectors, a significant share of storage facilities, and flexible topology already available or to be achieved as an integral part of the project. The secondary substation should be already equipped with advanced monitoring and control systems.

In order to increase the replication potential of the deployed solutions the three energy communities are invited to closely collaborate with similar energy communities.

The selected projects are expected to contribute to the BRIDGE initiative and actively participate in its activities. Additional contributions to the ‘Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation’ (AIOTI) and other relevant activities (e.g., clusters of digital projects and coordinating actions) might be considered when relevant.

In particular, this topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

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Activities are expected to achieve TRL 7-8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B. Activities may start at any TRL.