During the first 30 months of the PARITY project, the PARITY system components have been developed and are close to their final versions after adding functionalities and making improvements to the initial versions delivered in the previous year. In particular, in addition to the updated versions of the Blockchain platform, the Oracle and off-chain components of the local energy/flexibility market platform, the tools implemented for flexibility management have been presented along with initial results that demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approaches. Flexibility forecasting and management at building/prosumer level, as well as the management of aggregated flexibility through the Aggregator Toolset to enable participation to external markets or cover the needs of the Distribution System Operator, have been implemented. On grid level, the toolset for the Distribution System Operator that provides Smart Grid Monitoring and Active Network Management functionalities, based on the traffic light concept, has been developed and can be accessed through a web-based user interface. In addition, the D-STATCOM device has been assembled and is ready to be deployed at one of the pilots in Spain. Initial results have been reported on the integration among the components and data exchange, which is in progress. These activities have been performed according to the specifications of the tools, the business and use cases, and the system architecture that were defined during the first 18 months. The procurement and installations of the equipment at the pilot sites have been performed, as well as the commissioning through internal workshops. Another important point is the activities for informing and engaging the pilot users, which have been started at the pilot sites and provided initial feedback. The pre-validation of the developed solutions in controlled environments revealed the feasibility of the implemented approaches, their performance and the potential benefits. Further tests in small-scale deployments at pilot sites helped to perform fine-tuning and to resolve any possibly identified issues.
In terms of communication and dissemination, activities and achievements have been communicated via the social media channels of the project and the other communication channels that have been established, as described in the detailed communication and dissemination plan. PARITY partners have participated in several conferences and workshops/events in order to disseminate the achievements of the project. Thirteen (13) scientific publications have been produced so far in total. Furthermore, PARITY project provided contributions to the working groups and task forces of the BRIDGE initiative in several ways, such as in data management and process flows, user groups and user engagement, and other.
Regarding exploitation activities and market development, the project exploitation and business innovation plan was realized, including the individual exploitation plans per partner. In addition, the involved partners finalized the emerging trends description, and provided a market adoption roadmap for the PARITY offerings.