Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ACCEPT (ACtive Communities & Energy Prosumers for the energy Transition)
Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-12-31
Problem: Further renewables integration on the electricity supply side and electrification of heat and transport on the demand side are no-regret options for the achievement of the climate change mitigation targets of the EC. However, they both introduce major challenges for the electricity network (imbalances between demand and supply, increased peak demand, etc.). To overcome these, network operators need to either upgrade their network infrastructure, increasing network charges and hence electricity bills for the end-customer, or turn to solutions such as ancillary services and demand response schemes. For the latter, the challenge is on engaging successfully prosumers in demand-response schemes, requiring them to adapt their energy consumption patterns to network needs.
Importance to society: Demand-response schemes could help alleviate electricity network constraints caused by peak demand and the connection of variable RES to the grid in a cost-efficient way (minimising socialised infrastructure costs) and in less time (network upgrades are time-consuming), facilitating the energy transition at the lowest possible cost for the end-customers.
Objectives: The ACCEPT project aims to untap the demand flexibility potential from energy communities and their members by actively involving them in demand response schemes. To achieve this, the project will develop and deliver a digital toolbox, through co-creation activities with end-users, which will be used by the energy communities and prosumers to achieve the project objectives. These objectives include i) the development of innovative digital services for energy communities, complementing their existing non-digital services to customers, and ii) the access to revenue streams that will support the longevity and the well-functioning of the community itself. The critical success factor of the ACCEPT solution will be to deliver a minimum viable product that has passed preliminary market and financial testing.
Importance to society: Demand-response schemes could help alleviate electricity network constraints caused by peak demand and the connection of variable RES to the grid in a cost-efficient way (minimising socialised infrastructure costs) and in less time (network upgrades are time-consuming), facilitating the energy transition at the lowest possible cost for the end-customers.
Objectives: The ACCEPT project aims to untap the demand flexibility potential from energy communities and their members by actively involving them in demand response schemes. To achieve this, the project will develop and deliver a digital toolbox, through co-creation activities with end-users, which will be used by the energy communities and prosumers to achieve the project objectives. These objectives include i) the development of innovative digital services for energy communities, complementing their existing non-digital services to customers, and ii) the access to revenue streams that will support the longevity and the well-functioning of the community itself. The critical success factor of the ACCEPT solution will be to deliver a minimum viable product that has passed preliminary market and financial testing.
In the project duration, the ACCEPT partners carried out a series of activities which resulted in:
• The finalised ACCEPT system architecture.
• The delivery of the finalised ACCEPT’s prosumer- and community-level digital toolbox, pre-validated and refined based on obtained results and user feedback.
• The designed of a set of business models for the delivery of value-adding compound services to energy communities and their members.
• The active engagement with participating consumers/prosumers at the four pilot countries to i) gather important information which helped deliver the final pilot-specific engagement roadmaps, ii) design, beta-test and co-create end-user tools, and ii) develop personas that can be used as a guide for the development of the CApp.
• The completion IoT installations and system deployment at the four (4) demo sites of ACCEPT , in Greece, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
• The finalisation of the project’s dissemination and communication plan and the creation a strong project identity.
• The development of synergies for increasing project visibility, exploring possible collaboration routes and maximising project impact.
• Eleven (11) Use Cases were tested at the four (4) demo sites of ACCEPT , in Greece, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. Control automation took place at all sites involving a number of diverse loads including: electric water heaters, heat pumps, PV batteries, and EV chargers.
• In average of 62% demand flexibility potential, considering the forecasted consumption of the controllable electric loads on site, was extracted throughout the project, and 61% of the requested demand flexibility was acquired through control automation.
• 11% peak load reduction was achieved through the project activities.
• Conscious acceptance of smart home control automation at the demo sites exceeded 78%, and only 5% of the users expressed nuisance due to this control automation. The user satisfaction of the solution reached 72%.
• The project's dissemination activities reached over 73,000 consumers throughout Europe over a number of communication channels including newsletters, social media, ACCEPT website, EU-/national-level events and conferences, podcasts etc.
• The finalised ACCEPT system architecture.
• The delivery of the finalised ACCEPT’s prosumer- and community-level digital toolbox, pre-validated and refined based on obtained results and user feedback.
• The designed of a set of business models for the delivery of value-adding compound services to energy communities and their members.
• The active engagement with participating consumers/prosumers at the four pilot countries to i) gather important information which helped deliver the final pilot-specific engagement roadmaps, ii) design, beta-test and co-create end-user tools, and ii) develop personas that can be used as a guide for the development of the CApp.
• The completion IoT installations and system deployment at the four (4) demo sites of ACCEPT , in Greece, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
• The finalisation of the project’s dissemination and communication plan and the creation a strong project identity.
• The development of synergies for increasing project visibility, exploring possible collaboration routes and maximising project impact.
• Eleven (11) Use Cases were tested at the four (4) demo sites of ACCEPT , in Greece, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. Control automation took place at all sites involving a number of diverse loads including: electric water heaters, heat pumps, PV batteries, and EV chargers.
• In average of 62% demand flexibility potential, considering the forecasted consumption of the controllable electric loads on site, was extracted throughout the project, and 61% of the requested demand flexibility was acquired through control automation.
• 11% peak load reduction was achieved through the project activities.
• Conscious acceptance of smart home control automation at the demo sites exceeded 78%, and only 5% of the users expressed nuisance due to this control automation. The user satisfaction of the solution reached 72%.
• The project's dissemination activities reached over 73,000 consumers throughout Europe over a number of communication channels including newsletters, social media, ACCEPT website, EU-/national-level events and conferences, podcasts etc.
ACCEPT’s advances beyond the state-of-the-art are expected across the project’s key focus areas, namely the consumer engagement, business modelling and the creation of a digital toolbox for energy communities allowing them to participate in value-adding demand response schemes. Specifically:
• ACCEPT developed and implemented a participatory citizen engagement programme, with the aim of co-creating the project’s technical solutions to satisfy customer and energy community needs and requirements and validating the project’s developments and business models. Through this programme, the project provided valuable insights into consumer acceptability of demand response schemes. Finally, the project developed a multidisciplinary model that acknowledges the effects governance, organisational frameworks, and socio-economic/socio-cultural factors (including gender) have on individual/community participation and the wider social acceptability of the renewable energy infrastructure.
• In order to understand the underlying causes that shape the consumer energy consumption and consider them for forecasting future consumption trends at different network nodes, the ACCEPT project went beyond mere consumption forecasts based on historical consumption data. The project developed a Consumer Digital Twin, which encapsulates all necessary technical and behavioural information for analysing how and why energy is consumed within a building and in energy communities. It comprises of three models, the Citizen Digital Twin, which captures the daily activities and consumption patterns and behaviours of a building’s occupant, the Building Digital Twin, which captures all information related to the building and its existing energy infrastructure, and the Dynamic SRI-based performance rating of buildings, which assesses the smart readiness of the building.
• The ACCEPT Consumer Digital Twin, tested within the project activities, will allow a market actor to understand, anticipate and forecast energy/flexibility behaviour at the grid connection point. This will enable innovative business models, such as Heating/Amenity-as-a-Service, or conventional supply/aggregation models via the delivery of human-centric services at acceptable price points for any energy vector and building asset at hand.
• Finally, ACCEPT provided the means (models, techniques and control algorithms) to deliver a valuable flexibility lever for prosumers, considering their comfort preferences, through the implementation of an adaptive, prosumer-centric and context-aware virtual thermal energy storage module.
Based on the above, the wider expected impacts of the project refer to i) increased use of demand response schemes across a larger number and variety of consumers in Europe, ii) demonstrated and improved viability, reliability and acceptability of innovative compound services, increasing the uptake of such services by consumers, iii) increased data protection and privacy for customers, iv) improved accuracy of project models on flexibility and consumption and behaviour patterns, and v) increase available flexibility for accommodating more RES on the network.
• ACCEPT developed and implemented a participatory citizen engagement programme, with the aim of co-creating the project’s technical solutions to satisfy customer and energy community needs and requirements and validating the project’s developments and business models. Through this programme, the project provided valuable insights into consumer acceptability of demand response schemes. Finally, the project developed a multidisciplinary model that acknowledges the effects governance, organisational frameworks, and socio-economic/socio-cultural factors (including gender) have on individual/community participation and the wider social acceptability of the renewable energy infrastructure.
• In order to understand the underlying causes that shape the consumer energy consumption and consider them for forecasting future consumption trends at different network nodes, the ACCEPT project went beyond mere consumption forecasts based on historical consumption data. The project developed a Consumer Digital Twin, which encapsulates all necessary technical and behavioural information for analysing how and why energy is consumed within a building and in energy communities. It comprises of three models, the Citizen Digital Twin, which captures the daily activities and consumption patterns and behaviours of a building’s occupant, the Building Digital Twin, which captures all information related to the building and its existing energy infrastructure, and the Dynamic SRI-based performance rating of buildings, which assesses the smart readiness of the building.
• The ACCEPT Consumer Digital Twin, tested within the project activities, will allow a market actor to understand, anticipate and forecast energy/flexibility behaviour at the grid connection point. This will enable innovative business models, such as Heating/Amenity-as-a-Service, or conventional supply/aggregation models via the delivery of human-centric services at acceptable price points for any energy vector and building asset at hand.
• Finally, ACCEPT provided the means (models, techniques and control algorithms) to deliver a valuable flexibility lever for prosumers, considering their comfort preferences, through the implementation of an adaptive, prosumer-centric and context-aware virtual thermal energy storage module.
Based on the above, the wider expected impacts of the project refer to i) increased use of demand response schemes across a larger number and variety of consumers in Europe, ii) demonstrated and improved viability, reliability and acceptability of innovative compound services, increasing the uptake of such services by consumers, iii) increased data protection and privacy for customers, iv) improved accuracy of project models on flexibility and consumption and behaviour patterns, and v) increase available flexibility for accommodating more RES on the network.