Periodic Reporting for period 3 - FLEXICIENCY (energy services demonstrations of demand response, FLEXibility and energy effICIENCY based on metering data) Reporting period: 2018-02-01 to 2019-01-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project Smarter grids are gaining the ability for electricity customers to change electricity usage and the way they can contribute to the system optimization.New technologies and determinations are opening up new perspectives and consumers will assume a completely new role. Accordingly, the market needs to adapt and data accessibility has the potential to facilitate higher openness and competition.In the FLEXICIENCY project, selected for funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 646482, access to data is addressed to foster deployment of new services not in place or fully exploited in Europe. The development of an EU Market Place (MP) prototype, together with open interfaces, will catalyze the interactions between stakeholders and encourage cross-country and cross-player access to services at EU level. Being a virtual ICT environment communicating with IT platforms, it acts as pan-European meeting point between stakeholders, able to exchange data and services with the ultimate purpose to provide services to customers. No physical data transfer or storage occurs on the MP, which acts as a gateway for service requests.Based on a common framework for data exchange, FLEXICIENCY demonstrates novel services in the market. 4 DSOs run complementary demos with real customers and a 5th is run in Austria, where smart metering is not yet available.The Project also emphasized the cross demonstration aspect and the interaction with external stakeholders in order to show the usefulness and the benefits of the EU Market Place.Three service categories were covered: Advanced energy monitoring (with energy consumptions and production information made available to the customers); Local energy control (tools and algorithms for local energy control and modulation); Flexibility (by a group of aggregated customers, distributed systems of loads and generators, including a micro grid).Here below is a list of main recommendations and lessons learned of the Project. For further details, please visit the Project website to download publicly available documentation (D11.6)• Standardization of data exchange formats is key to facilitate data provision, by implementing EUMED CIM. Based on the Common Information Model, it added further attributed to fit the FLEXICIENCY use cases; • Reduced time to market. The adoption of a common communication standard and single set of interfaces specifications both for B2B and for communications with EU MP has proved to speed up the process with respect to Business As Usual scenario;• Data protection and GDPR compliance ensured. Market Place implementation does not imply additional requirements in terms of customers/company data protection;• Project achieved the TRL7 although further actions are needed to fully adopt FLEXICIENCY market place, collecting more feedback to adapt Market Place to commercial users’ needs and implementing a more user-friendly interface;• Company authentication should be further addressed;• The B2C services offered have proved to be attractive and effective. Willingness to recommend and customer satisfaction were high which proves customers were engaged and the services were attractive. There is a potential for increased energy efficiency in public sector although closer communication with management is required;• Integration with existing national data hubs. The FLEXICIENCY platform can be an as extra layer above existing data management systems;• All the services demonstrated have a positive internal value (min. 25% of savings when using the EU MP);• Where data hubs are available, third party access to validated data should be regulated. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far In RP1, B2C and B2B services, including interactions with the EU MP, were detailed under a common architecture framework for data and service exchange (D2.1) together with the technical architecture and system conditions for B2B data exchange at EU scale (D2.2 and D2.3).Specifications to integrate the IT platforms of different players and the system conditions for metering data provision among different EU actors were defined in the view of accelerating deployment of novel services at pan-EU scale (core functionalities defined and detailed in D4.1) together with the definition of KPIs.In RP2 (Aug. 2016-Jan. 2018), a commonly available data model for exchange of meter data across Europe has been detailed addressing service continuity with existing data systems while hosting future data services. The CIM (Common Information Model) standard has been chosen as basis to support the B2B exchange and an extension defined to incorporate dedicated attributes (D2.3 v2.0 and D6.0); namely a CIM-based API over REST has been selected as a new standard due to its simplicity and ubiquitous adoption in the industry. An OAuth2.0 based authorization mechanism was also specified to assure an ease but secure customer consent management.The EU MP prototype has been developed and interfaced with the B2B platforms. Additional use cases were defined to improve its usability (D4.1 v2.0) and the seamless integration with existing systems (D4.2) together with open source tool for the development of integration API (D4.3).In RP3, FLEXICIENCY finally collected the results from the demos in order to deliver the final recommendations and lessons learned. Despite the original plan, the Project further enriched the tests by implementing also cross demos involving different countries and demonstrating the usefulness of the EU Market Place.A set of 15 innovations with exploitation potential have been identified by the project. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) To become active players, customers must be provided with higher quality and quantity of information as well as ICT tools and service giving greater control of their energy use.Moreover, as from deregulation procedures, third parties should be able to access data to eventually provide new services and develop new business models. Nevertheless, data exchange is still a barrier: there is no unique standard for the exchange of data and metering data are primarily made available for settlement, with no or limited forwarding of data to other third parties. FLEXICIENCY contributed to the establishment of:• A multi-source single contact point at EU level across diverse countries to facilitate competition development and remove barriers; indeed the Proejct demonstrates a significant decrease in time to market for both standardized and non-standardized services as well as a simplification of the integration among market players. Moreover, EU Market Place has been developed using an open architecture, allowing any company to enter in it with a relatively small IT effort;• Common language for B2B data and service exchange, through the definition of common messages and specifications for B2B communication and interfaces;• Authorization mechanisms and data privacy and protection, where an ease but secure customer consent management has been specified based on OAuth2.0 protocol;• Facilitation of consumers’ engagement passing through higher awareness, where higher information and new services will empower customers to become active players. Based on the results of the demo, advanced monitoring and local control services provide to be effective and attractive. • The identification of appropriate routes of exploitation for the EU Market Place prototype requires to properly assess the current market and regulatory context. FLEXICIENCY overall architecture
