Integrated multi-vector management system for Energy isLANDs

Project Information

E-LAND

Grant agreement ID: 824388

DOI

10.3030/824388

Project closed

EC signature date 14 November 2018

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 30 November 2022

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 5 900 942,42

EU contribution

€ 5 354 345,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT DE GIRONA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - E-LAND (Integrated multi-vector management system for Energy isLANDs)

Reporting period: 2021-08-01 to 2022-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Towards achieving the goal of supporting the decarbonization of energy islands by creating a low-carbon energy system there are still technology, societal and business challenges to overcome.
From the technology point of view, different energy sectors are de-coupled from both operational and planning viewpoints even though interactions exist. Regarding energy storage, energy can be stored in various forms but there is a lack of optimization tools to co-manage different storage types. And finally, for year-round reliability, a seasonal imbalance in generation and demand needs to be handled.
Societal challenges arise from the fact, that many ‘energy technology’ related roll-outs have technical and financial focus only, without trying to understand how new innovations can most effectively be adopted by the communities.
Regarding the business challenges, energy industry lacks proper tools which can be used for bringing innovation to the business models and to venture into new market comprising of multi-vector energy systems. In addition, communities need viable business models to run a local energy business. Finally, introducing multi-vector energy systems opens new market opportunities for different types of energy storage and new business models are required to take advantage of the opportunities.

E-LAND adressed the challenges by developing the E-LAND Toolbox for Multi-Energy Islands.
The specific objectives:
1) Develop multi-vector energy optimisation algorithms
2) Develop and integrate the technology tools
3) Increase the use of, and further develop and validate the current and most advanced innovative business models
4) Create new business opportunities for different storage technologies
5) Achieve an economically viable system
6) Understand how the dynamics of existing communities work to secure impact
7) Enforce the role of citizens and communities as active players in implementing new technology
8) Implement a modular toolbox and validate the viability and impact of these tools in three regions in Europe and one region in India
The E-LAND project successfully developed the toolbox for decarbonizing the local energy systems and tested it with three European pilots and two Indian pilots. The developed tools address all mentioned challenges and are divided to community, business and technology layer. This toolbox showed reductions on CO2 emissions and peak power as well as increase in energy independency of the local community through reduction of electricity needed from the grid. In addition, E-LAND demonstrated successful community involvement and multiple business models for the communities.

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 development of most of the technology tools was carried out in the previous periods. During the final period, these tools were validated with the pilot sites. The development of Optimal Scheduler continued during the period for each pilot site. In addition, the Risk Toolkit was developed and actively used. The tools were promoted via workshops both in Europe and India.
Testing and developing the Common Impact Model continued and it was implemented in the pilot communities according to their needs. Workshops were organized with external participants to disseminate and exploit the tool. BRIDGE collaboration was intensive during the final period.
The Business Model Innovation tool was validated with the pilots. Using benchmarked businesses, 25 generic business model patterns were derived to support business model development for energy communities and related stakeholders. An innovation process has been designed to facilitate the use of the tool. A digital version of tool was created and made public in the E-LAND website. The tool was disseminated both via scientific publications and workshops in Europe and India.
To promote the use of E-LAND toolbox dedicated workshops were organized with the European pilots and Indian collaboration partners to invite stakeholders to test the tool and learn more about the project. Relevant exploitable result owners have identified fitting IP strategy for their business and followed up with their individual exploitation plans. Join exploitation plan was also finalized in collaboration with the partners. Regulatory assessment was concluded on piloting countries to identify the regulatory barriers.
Implementation activities related to technical tools validation have been concluded to ensure successful piloting of the tools. During the final period, all technology tools were integrated to the pilots. The testing of the E-LAND toolbox in all pilot locations was concluded. The data connectivity and quality challenges were solved and the KPIs were calculated with excellent results.

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)

E-LAND project developed, integrated and validate a full toolbox for decarbonizing local energy systems. This toolbox is divided into three layers, supported by risk management and build-in security features as well as the integration components.
The community layer is the Common Impact model, a novel process for ensuring successful implementation of technologies with people. It helps to understand the community and it needs as well as provides tools for interaction and involvement of the community in technology projects. The Common Impact Model developed includes a ‘tool layer’ to compliment the community engagement process including a modular scoping questionnaire, community profile template, and tactical workbook template.
The business layer is the Business Model Innovation tool. This tool includes core areas and patterns relevant for the energy community business model and is the first one to focus on community business model development in the energy sector. Together with the tool, an innovation process has been designed to facilitate the use of the tool. In addition, a digital version of the tool was created which will be made public in the upcoming period.
Regarding the technical tools, Data pre-processing application, Energy forecaster, Optimal Scheduler, Multi-Vector Simulator, Energy Planning Application, Enterprise Service Bus and Data Visualisation component were developed and validated with the pilots. These tools address multi-vector local energy systems from long-term planning, short-term optimization and management point of view. In addition, the Risk Toolkit, which provides valuable insights for communities to address risk, privacy and security in their solutions and services was developed.
To ensure the exploitation potential of the whole E-LAND toolbox, the Replication toolkit was developed, providing the user with detailed instructions on how to utilize the tools for solving their decarbonization challenge.
The validation results showed the toolbox has reached its target KPIs for each impact points and for many KPIs, the results were above the target values. Project has identified the following summarized impact points to be reached.
- Relevant, compatible and supportive with the broad EU energy policy context and contributing to the 2030 Climate-Energy objectives
- Validating holistic solutions for decarbonization of the local energy system
- Enhancing the involvement of local energy consumers and producers and test new business models

Front poster for E-LAND