Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SmarterEMC2 (Smarter Grid: Empowering SG Market Actors through Information and Communication Technologies)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2016-07-01 al 2017-12-31
The Demand Response pilot in Greece included 75 residential customers. Almost 52 DR events were issued in the course of its 4 months operation with an average of 8% of peak shaving. The Demand Response pilot in Turkey included 432 commercial and industrial customers. Almost 650 events were issued with a total achieved shed of 274 MWh. In Italy, the pilot was focused on improving the performance of the electricity distribution grid. The use of the tools implemented in the project contributed in achieving a reduction of the power outage events by almost 1/16 and a reduction of the power outage duration by almost 1/3 in the area of the pilot.
On a parallel thread, the consortium was fully dedicated in the broad dissemination and communication of the project objectives and results and ended up with more than 24 peer-reviewed papers, several communication activities and a final workshop in the context of the European Utility Week 2017, which attracted a broad audience. Last, but not least, the project members were fully active in the BRIDGE Work Groups and actively contributed in several reports.
The key exploitable results of the project are as follows:
Demand Response Management System: System utilized for the provision of DR Services and the realization of communications with DR resources. It can be operated either by the DSO or a Demand Response Aggregator.
Virtual Power Plant Management Platform: Platform with the ability to integrate various distribution grid resources (DGs, loads, storage). The platform optimizes the operations of these resources according to different objective functions related to market operation or ancillary services.
Energy Hub: Software for the management of the distribution grid. It associates a certain number of flexibility assets operating within the distribution grid boundaries with the objective to optimize local energy flows and minimize the economic and environmental costs.
Smart Grid data analytics platform: Software API that enables secure data storage and visualization.
Algorithms for bad data detection for Smart Grids: Patented techniques capable to detect both stealthy and non-stealthy attacks; to quickly identify which node has been attacked; and to advise how to change system topology to avoid future attack.
Piloting these tools in real life settings revealed interesting findings with regards to their potential impact. For example, piloting DR indicated that an aspect that definitely needs further investigation and proper attention is related to the formulation of proper incentives to the interested customers in order to enroll, as well as to actively participate in DR programs. In the cases we examined, the existing legislation did not allow the DSOs to provide monetary incentives to its customers. This affected both the customers’ recruitment and engagement. It became apparent that incentives are important both for establishing a critical mass of participants, as well as for increasing the impact of each individual through proper remuneration mechanisms.
The project also included extensive simulation activities to explore the feasibility and performance of novel communication techniques associated with Smart Grid services. For example, a novel way of limiting sensing overhead using a cooperative mechanism with an adjustable double threshold (DTH) was developed. Also, a ‘k-nearest neighbor classifier’ approach to independently identify UHF white spaces available for use in Smart Grid communications was proposed. Finally, we demonstrated a data aggregation system that can fully exploit RF bandwidth as well as prioritize various Smart Grid data. With regards to the assessment of the feasibility of telecommunications infrastructure to support novel Smart Grids services one significant identified constraint is the cost of new infrastructure deployments. Efficient and accurate sensor deployment is a critical requirement for the development of the communication network on top of Smart Grid network, but at the time being the cost is something that should be considered. Wireless communications are able provide both flexibility and cost savings in the deployment and maintenance, compared to wireline deployments.