Unlocking European grid local flexibility trough augmented energy conversion capabilities at district-level

Project Information

PENTAGON

Grant agreement ID: 731125

DOI

10.3030/731125

Project closed

EC signature date 10 November 2016

Start date 1 December 2016

End date 30 November 2019

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 2 834 757,50

EU contribution

€ 2 834 757,50

Coordinated by

R2M SOLUTION SRL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PENTAGON (Unlocking European grid local flexibility trough augmented energy conversion capabilities at district-level)

Reporting period: 2018-06-01 to 2019-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In order to reach the challenging goals set by the European Union in terms of energy management, the penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) has to be drastically increased. Given the inherent intermittent nature of RES production a significant increase in renewables adds further stress to the electric grid. This comes from the production variability and the mismatch between electricity generation and consumption. Thus, PENTAGON aims at paving the way to a new generation of eco-districts, leveraging on enhanced energy conversion systems and a high level integrated management platform simultaneously acting on different energy carriers (thermal, gas and electric). To this end, PENTAGON will rely on a two-sided technology offer that includes an innovative power to gas technology at district level and a versatile, service-based IoT (Internet of Things) platform for holistic, multi-vector energy management. PENTAGON will also ensure the market uptake (adoption and large scale deployment) of the solution delivered through an evidence-based exploitation roadmap for next generation European eco-districts, particularly aimed at local authorities and ESCOs.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The progress can be summarised per workpackage as follows:

WP1: WP1 deals with effective governance and is therefore not directly related to the scientific progress within the project. The work package has laid the foundations for effective project management and is based on the PRINCE2 project management methodology. Templates have been distributed to WP leaders to implement the work implement plan (WIP) per WP. This is now complete for all the WPs within PENTAGON.

WP2: The work developed so far in this Work Package closely follows the objective of providing the necessary integration between the highly efficient SOE technology with the methanation section, feeding the waste heat from the latter as steam to the former. This step is essential to reach high system efficiencies.

WP3: Significant progress has been made in the formulation, development and the implementation of the multivector centralised and de-centralised optimisation framework(s). The optimization model development and test has progressed well for both optimization approaches and some initial results have been demonstrated at the M18 progress meeting (see image attached).

WP4: Use case scenarios providing specifications for heat production, electricity production and consumptions have been defined. The experimental facility is being prepared for the validation activities of WP4. Historical data for building load (simulated) and solar panel heat production (measured) has been collected and provided to CU for machine learning purposes.

WP5: The consortium has defined the methodological framework that will frame the wider-scale validation of PENTAGON flexibility management solution. As a next step, the consortium have described the electrical and heating networks of Blaenau Gwent test site. It also outlines the process to collect and package the data that is required for the setting-up of the simulation.

WP6: The Project Webpage and Flipboard, Communication and Dissemination Plan and PENTAGON Stakeholder Community development is now complete. Further, an Exploitable Result Table which contains the list of the ERs identified in the 1st year of project organised into the consolidated table (essential information reported) and the expanded table where the ERs are described in detail. This has given the project consortium, a solid foundation to build new business models - which will remain the focus over the next 18 month duration.

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)

The important results impacts can be summarised per work-package as follows:

WP1: WP1 deals with effective governance and is therefore not directly related to the impact measurements. The work package has laid the fundations for effective project management and is based on the PRINCE2 project management methodlogy.

WP2: Power-to-gas technology allows for linking the electricity and gas networks. The development of this technology in WP2 therefore plays a key role in delivering the higher penetration rate of renewables aimed at in the PENTAGON project. The specific increase in conversion efficiency from power to gas, which is one of the key objectives in the Work Package 2, is furthermore essential for a cost efficient and environmentally sound integration of this technology in the PENTAGON concept. The work developed so far in this Work Package closely follows the objective of providing the necessary integration between the highly efficient SOE technology with the methanation section, feeding the waste heat from the latter as steam to the former. This step is essential to reach high system efficiencies. The TRL of the WP is currently at 4-5. SOE systems have been demonstrated in a laboratory environment and the present project aims at bringing the complete system to an industrially relevant environment.

WP3: The result of WP3 is the flexibility management platform that will be used for the scheduled technical and economic investigations in WP4 and WP5 for the project test sites. As such, the work of the WP3 team lays the software basis for the evaluation of the achievement of PENTAGON key impacts 1 (higher RES penetration and enhanced synergies among networks) and 2 (increase of revenues) and directly contributes to PENTAGON key impacts 3 (platform for development of aggregation business) and 4 (integration of power2gas). As no quantified results based on real test site data will be generated in WP3, the work package mainly contributes to the latter two key impacts (in line with the impacts stated in the grant agreement).

WP4: WP4 relates to the validation of the PENTAGON platform, and as such contributes to the evaluation of the different criteria used in the key impacts 1, 2 and 3 as stated in the grant agreement.

WP5: At the end of the project, the results obtained in WP5 will allows to evaluate the different criteria used in the key impacts 1, 2 and 3. Key impacts 4 and 5 are not related to WP5.

WP6: The WP6 is strongly connected with the Key Impact 3: Empowering European smart district managers to successfully implement local energy aggregation businesses, allowing for the generation of additional revenues from district flexibility trading and reduced energy costs for local consumers. The current status of the PENTAGON project does not allow the evaluation of the referred impact that directly depend on activities planned for the second part of the project. Therefore, at the moment is not possible evaluate the WP6 for the 3th impact point. WP6 is also connected with the impact point number 5: Contribute to a selection of standardization actions aimed at the design of future energy market, leveraging existing PENTAGON consortium and stakeholder community. As previously described this will be the result of the task 6.5 and at the moment is not possible evaluate the contribution for this impact level.

Further, the publications detailed in the attached technical report demonstrates that the work done in PENTAGON is beyond the current state of art.

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