Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SUSTENANCE (Sustainable energy system for achieving novel carbon neutral energy communities)
Période du rapport: 2022-09-01 au 2023-10-31
The key focus of the SUSTENANCE project is to build carbon-neutral energy communities by establishing local, sustainable and efficiently integrated energy systems. The main objective is to develop and demonstrate smart techno-socio-economic and eco-friendly solutions and tools for effecting multi-energy systems and collective actions in communities. The aim is to maximise the use of local renewable energy, enable energy efficiency and to enhance the quality of life for the citizens. The demonstration activities are conducted in European and Indian neighbourhoods, facilitating mutual learning, knowledge transfer and co-innovation for enhancing the value of innovative solutions thereby developed and its replicability in other communities within these countries and beyond.
The demonstration activities take place in four countries, Denmark, India, the Netherlands and Poland. Each have varying degrees of local energy resources, different socio-economic and institutional setups, topographical characteristics, energy policies and market conditions. However, each site has energy challenges and options which are representative of other communities in Europe and India, so they offer an excellent platform to deliver maximum impact from demonstration activities and the development of solutions appropriate for further replication.
Each demo site includes planned activities which will demonstrate the cross-sector coupling of different energy vectors utilizing energy storage solutions, demand response methods, intelligent control schemes and digitalisation to smarten the operation of electricity networks with high shares of renewable energy. These activities will aim to provide a reliable, economic and decarbonized energy supply to the communities involved. The selected sites give prime importance to the active involvement and collective commitment from the citizens, along with the relevant energy stakeholders (i.e. utilities and industry etc.) and social institutions (i.e. municipalities, village authorities and NGOs etc.). This focus will facilitate the enhancement of technological innovations and identify opportunities to develop and test business models and benchmark tools for enabling such integrated solutions to be acceptable in renewable energy communities. In addition, SUSTENANCE will adopt crosscutting steps and cutting-edge methods across the demo sites to solve common regulatory, legal, socio-economic and technical issues.
The demonstration activities take place in four countries, Denmark, India, the Netherlands and Poland. Each have varying degrees of local energy resources, different socio-economic and institutional setups, topographical characteristics, energy policies and market conditions. However, each site has energy challenges and options which are representative of other communities in Europe and India, so they offer an excellent platform to deliver maximum impact from demonstration activities and the development of solutions appropriate for further replication.
Each demo site includes planned activities which will demonstrate the cross-sector coupling of different energy vectors utilizing energy storage solutions, demand response methods, intelligent control schemes and digitalisation to smarten the operation of electricity networks with high shares of renewable energy. These activities will aim to provide a reliable, economic and decarbonized energy supply to the communities involved. The selected sites give prime importance to the active involvement and collective commitment from the citizens, along with the relevant energy stakeholders (i.e. utilities and industry etc.) and social institutions (i.e. municipalities, village authorities and NGOs etc.). This focus will facilitate the enhancement of technological innovations and identify opportunities to develop and test business models and benchmark tools for enabling such integrated solutions to be acceptable in renewable energy communities. In addition, SUSTENANCE will adopt crosscutting steps and cutting-edge methods across the demo sites to solve common regulatory, legal, socio-economic and technical issues.
SUSTENANCE is a jointly funded action, receiving funds from both the EU and India. Aalborg University (AAU) in Denmark coordinates the project consortium, whilst the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) organises the work from the Indian side.
The second 14 months of the project have been focused on finalising the modelling activities for the electric heating systems, EV charging, and the control aspects for the smart integration of energy carriers and distributed energy resources. Work on the models for water pumping and waste management as well as grid support services has also been made.
The control methods which were set up based on the models are being implemented at the demonstration sites for further application and verification. During this reporting period valuable synergies from the different partners’ perspectives on the models has been achieved, so the broad applicability of the models has been ensured.
The University of Twente completed a baseline survey which contributed to the analysis of levels of social acceptability of the technical innovations in local communities and how this can be related to the concept of energy autarky. Whilst citizens generally embrace the concept of energy autarky, they are more reluctant when it comes to the actual governance required. UT has also worked on establishing the criteria for attractive citizen-centered business models. Here the focus has been on prices, economic compensation, private and local economies and the willingness to pay for certain services.
Despite some initial difficulties in sourcing heat-pumps and EV-chargers due to the global supply chain situation post COVID, and subsequent energy crisis, the demo sites are all well under way with the implementation of the planned equipment and citizen involvement having been undertaken. In the Danish case all the heat-pumps and heat-storages are in place, as well as some PV panels and EV chargers. In the Dutch demonstrator, there are two main focus areas, the car charging facility at UT campus and the energy management system at the Vriendenerf community. A lot of work has been done in setting up the internet of things (IoT) platform and related dashboard/mobile APP. In the Polish demo analysis for the installations of the measurement system for data gathering have been finalised and the local sub-station has been fully renovated and is ready for the active energy community. For the Indian demonstrator many prototypes have been developed, including a new multi-purpose heat-pump for the cooling and drying of agricultural produce, a small low speed wind turbine, and a new motor for an electric rickshaw and an EV charger. The next step is to test these at the demo sites to verify their effectiveness in real conditions. Work has also begun to develop a complete water pumping facility, including the well, a PV system for power, pumps and energy storage.
In terms of the project’s communication, dissemination, exploitation and replication activities, the project’s website and LinkedIn pages are fully established and regularly updated. New promotion material has been uploaded which includes four videos, four newsletters and a recently published brochure of educational material. The EU partners have published five peer-reviewed articles and two open data sets. The Indian partners have published nineteen papers. All partners have actively participated in workshops and given presentations at significant events including Smart Utility Week (ISUW) in India, CIRED (International Conference & Exhibition on Electricity Distribution) in Italy, and European Week of Regions and Cities in Belgium. The project is actively involved in all four working groups in BRIDGE and initiated work with the Horizon Results Booster service. This has identified Key Exploitable Results, and a “project group” will be formed to share and replicate results.
The second 14 months of the project have been focused on finalising the modelling activities for the electric heating systems, EV charging, and the control aspects for the smart integration of energy carriers and distributed energy resources. Work on the models for water pumping and waste management as well as grid support services has also been made.
The control methods which were set up based on the models are being implemented at the demonstration sites for further application and verification. During this reporting period valuable synergies from the different partners’ perspectives on the models has been achieved, so the broad applicability of the models has been ensured.
The University of Twente completed a baseline survey which contributed to the analysis of levels of social acceptability of the technical innovations in local communities and how this can be related to the concept of energy autarky. Whilst citizens generally embrace the concept of energy autarky, they are more reluctant when it comes to the actual governance required. UT has also worked on establishing the criteria for attractive citizen-centered business models. Here the focus has been on prices, economic compensation, private and local economies and the willingness to pay for certain services.
Despite some initial difficulties in sourcing heat-pumps and EV-chargers due to the global supply chain situation post COVID, and subsequent energy crisis, the demo sites are all well under way with the implementation of the planned equipment and citizen involvement having been undertaken. In the Danish case all the heat-pumps and heat-storages are in place, as well as some PV panels and EV chargers. In the Dutch demonstrator, there are two main focus areas, the car charging facility at UT campus and the energy management system at the Vriendenerf community. A lot of work has been done in setting up the internet of things (IoT) platform and related dashboard/mobile APP. In the Polish demo analysis for the installations of the measurement system for data gathering have been finalised and the local sub-station has been fully renovated and is ready for the active energy community. For the Indian demonstrator many prototypes have been developed, including a new multi-purpose heat-pump for the cooling and drying of agricultural produce, a small low speed wind turbine, and a new motor for an electric rickshaw and an EV charger. The next step is to test these at the demo sites to verify their effectiveness in real conditions. Work has also begun to develop a complete water pumping facility, including the well, a PV system for power, pumps and energy storage.
In terms of the project’s communication, dissemination, exploitation and replication activities, the project’s website and LinkedIn pages are fully established and regularly updated. New promotion material has been uploaded which includes four videos, four newsletters and a recently published brochure of educational material. The EU partners have published five peer-reviewed articles and two open data sets. The Indian partners have published nineteen papers. All partners have actively participated in workshops and given presentations at significant events including Smart Utility Week (ISUW) in India, CIRED (International Conference & Exhibition on Electricity Distribution) in Italy, and European Week of Regions and Cities in Belgium. The project is actively involved in all four working groups in BRIDGE and initiated work with the Horizon Results Booster service. This has identified Key Exploitable Results, and a “project group” will be formed to share and replicate results.
During the next reporting period, the project will be focused on finalising and testing the technical models and control methods at each of the demo sites. An increasing amount of focus will be made on ensuring that the project includes the citizens perspectives to validate the innovations made, so we know how the solutions have been adapted to by them. Work to identify the roles required for energy communities and how they can contribute to the development of locally integrated energy systems will also be defined as we focus on replicability once the project ends. The Horizon Booster activities will further help the involved SMEs in exploiting their innovations and defining more clearly the business developments for their products. The academic partners will document the technical innovations as well as social perspectives found via papers and presentations at different events, making the results useful worldwide. Finally, the project will contribute with their findings in several of the working groups under the Bridge initiative.