SHAR-Q will deliver an interoperability network that promotes collaboration among RES+EES also enabling the development of advanced services through the exploitation of an open API, creating new business models and offering new opportunities for energy stakeholders. The innovative approach presented will break the current vendor dependencies enabling new business models that can facilitate not only the integration of different actors in the value chain, but also create new opportunities for emerging actors To deliver these results, SHAR-Q will work on the achievement of the following objectives:
• The SHAR-Q research is driven by stakeholders’ business drivers for collaboration.
• Coherent set of processes and technologies for deployment and operation of collaborative and distributed RES+EES ecosystems are defined.
• SHAR-Q technology framework components are implemented and available on the Internet.
• SHAR-Q collaboration framework and value-added services are demonstrated and evaluated with stakeholders at pilot locations.
* SHAR-Q replicability
SHAR-Q focuses on the creation of open ecosystems that boost the participation of multiple and different stakeholders in the energy last mile scenario. The openness of the approach aims at increasing replicability of the solution while simplifying not only its deployment but also the management of the services. Furthermore, SHAR-Q will carefully following the standardization bodies so as to provide connectors and data formats that are widely adopted, in any case, the open API will facilitate the development of new enablers.
* Environmental Impact
The principal environmental impact of the SHAR-Q project is brought via the enabling of the deployment of large variable RES capacities. According European Environment Agency, each kWh of electrical energy taken from the grid, produces approximately 0.55 kg CO2 emissions. SHAR-Q project is dedicated by its nature to enable the deployment of large capacities of RES, and therefore it significantly contributes to the decrease of emissions in the field of electrical energy generation.
* Societal Impact
In contrast with the existing solutions that are mostly centralized, the SHAR-Q concept is fully decentralized where each user has under control his/her involvement in the collaborative processes. Thus the platform presents a system built-in democracy. A further advantage of the decentralized nature of the SHAR-Q platform is that there are no central databases containing sensitive data on the users. All user data is stored in the user’s local infrastructure and so the users’ privacy is preserved by design.
* Market Transformation and Policy
SHAR-Q will support the vendor-independent marketplace. Successful solutions must be based on standards or should be standardized. Standardization of the interfaces and protocols implemented in smart energy components, such as EES and RES, is essential to establish interoperability between these components. Without standards that are embodied in products, there will be no guarantee that the electricity provider can control smart energy components that will have an unavoidable feature of the intelligent power networks.
* Enablers and barriers influencing the achievement of the expected impacts
Regulatory environments – The energy business is strictly regulated on EU and national levels, and therefore, certain options are unrealistic in the present regulatory frameworks. Nevertheless, we expect progress in this state, as it was reported by EURELECTRIC. These changes are expected to support concepts, such as SHAR-Q, which will present its results in years 2019-2020 when the regulatory framework is expected to progress in favour of distributed renewable energy production.
Commercial aspects – We recognize that the SHAR-Q platform and services may require special energy tariff systems that can be implemented only with contribution from appropriate energy market players. Moreover there is a wider commercial ecosystem that consists of product manufacturers, smart grid operators, service providers and system integrators around the distributed renewable energy production
Privacy concerns – Efficient management of energy demand requires gathering of data that can be potentially misused to monitor users’ habits breaching their privacy. Inappropriate implementation of data gathering process can therefore raise serious ethical issues.
Standardisation – The SHAR-Q interfaces and protocols to EES and RES will be defined in conformity with existing standards. Activity on the Smart Grid Task Force and its Expert Groups related to interface definition for data exchange will be carefully monitored in order to identify gaps in support of smart grid interoperability,
