It is widely recognised that increasing flexibility is key for the reliable operation of future power systems with very high penetration levels of Variable Renewable Energy Sources (VRES). Flexibility is the ability of a power system to maintain continuous service in the face...
It is widely recognised that increasing flexibility is key for the reliable operation of future power systems with very high penetration levels of Variable Renewable Energy Sources (VRES). Flexibility is the ability of a power system to maintain continuous service in the face of rapid and large swings in supply or demand. The most significant source of flexibility in a future scenario with high penetration of VRES is Demand Response (DR). The new challenge is to unlock the very high potential of DR in the distribution grid where the main sources of flexibility are the residential and tertiary buildings, representing 70% of the total DR potential.
Allowing a higher penetration of renewable energy has a positive environmental impact. By using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels we would significantly decrease the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and this would have positive environmental impact for our entire planet. Renewable energy is not all about environment as it can also give strong boost to our economy in form of new jobs. The number of people employed within the renewable energy industry is rapidly growing, giving many countries an excellent option to boost their economies in this post-recession period.
DRIvE will unlock the Demand Response potential of residential and tertiary buildings in the distribution grid through a full-fledge platform bridging seamlessly the value-chain from planning and design of assets/buildings towards optimal operations in the next generation Smart Grids, paving the way to a fully deployed DR market in the distribution network.
DRIvE will develop and validate a fully-integrated ICT infrastructure consisting of interoperable DR-enabling Energy Management solutions for residential and tertiary buildings and platform for effective and secure management of flexibility at the level of the distribution grid.
The DRIvE underpinning process will consist of 3 phases:
- Unlock DR potential of buildings
- Enable effective and secure decentralised management of the grid
- Make a synergistic use of validation activities to boost DRIvE’s development
The work performed during the first reporting period has progressed in accordance with the Grant Agreement and practically every objective and expected result has been accomplished in time
During the first period, the following results were obtained:
(1) Detailed analysis of the current regulatory framework regarding DR in the targeted countries
(2) Development of the design and integration requirements paired with the ICT infrastructure
(3) Creation of the DRIvE stakeholder community with over 100 relevant members
(4) Addition of extra pilot in Woerden due to the need for a residential district in which to test community management services.
(5) High resolution accurate forecasting tools based on artificial intelligence methods have been developed for all the key features. The accuracy for specific parameters achieved 95% above
(6) Mockups for the local consumer portal GUI defined in collaboration with the stakeholders
(7) Development of a multi-agent platform for energy management at the district level based on demand response
(8) Initial validation results of the multi-agent implicit and explicit DR algorithms have been obtained using historical data available for the Woerden residential district.
(9) Implementation of the DRIvE architecture on the Airbus Cyber Security simulation platform.
(10) Good progress on the overall integration of the DRIvE platform
(11) Fast local operational services (T6.2) have been implemented and validated by means of hybrid, cyber-physical testing involving FCR and CM services and the digital twin (behavioural model) of the Giessenwind battery (1 MW)
(12) KPIs for all use cases and test scenarios are devised so as to be both insightful for validation purposes, but also easy to visualize in GUI for demonstration and dissemination purposes; KPIs are devised for all use cases (a total of 45)
(13) Digital twins of pilot sites to be tested in hybrid cyber-physical mode were completed (Giessenwind) or nearly completed (Woerden, COMSA HQ building and ADO Stadium)
- Innovative load prediction
The near real-time forecasting of key parameters is critical for the DRIvE platform, which is based on the recording and observation of electricity generation and consumption. The near real-time information is utilised to perform the day-ahead forecasting and to detect any abnormal conditions at the building level. This information is utilised as a prior knowledge for the other DRIvE agents such as the optimiser, device and communication components.
- Optimisation Algorithms
MAS offers a distributed optimization of energy usage resulting in optimal energy schedules for flexible devices. These schedules are used for control actions that underlie an intelligent behaviour of the grid. The optimisation seeks to reduce the energy costs by taking advantage of locally produced renewable energy. An integrated community optimisation provides a collective energy management that accounts for goals shared among community members as opposed to individual ones. This enables the community to act as a stronger market participant and provide important services to DSO
- Interoperability:
As three of the pilots were running in the Netherlands and because the current regulatory framework in Spain doesn’t allow for explicit demand response projects, the choice was made to follow the European USEF standard which is the emerging standard on the market in the Netherlands for demand response between aggregators, DSO, BRP and TSO.
This choice will vastly improve the marketability of future findings in the DRIvE project.
The findings of DRIvE can thus also influence the standardization efforts for USEF, mainly in the area of BRP and TSO where the standardization is still incomplete.
For the fast operational services in the Netherlands we chose to explore the novel aFRR standard in cooperation with Tennet.
- Low cost solutions:
To keep the cost of the project low we are re-using as much as possible the infrastructure as elaborated for a previous EU project of Enervalis ( REnnovates 680603). We are reusing extending and adapting the HW platform and basic firmware of the Local Energy Gateway (LEG) and the Enervalis Smartpower Suite. The LEG HW is mass produced by ABB (one of the Enervalis shareholders) to keep the cost low enough for implementation in residential projects.
Furthermore, the Hardware In the Loop emulators for distributed energy resources of Typhoon Hil, combined with the Enervalis Smartpower Suite will create the opportunity to test complex smart grids without major HW investments.
- Design & development of cyber-security components for Smart Grids:
Secure communications in smart grids rely on the deployment of the CymID product, an IAM solution, the development of the Security Module embedded into every LEG and the development and the integration of the Secure Cloud Gateway.The enrolment of the LEG is initiated by the Security Module towards CymID. Once the certificate is obtained by the LEG, the communication between le LEG and the backend through the Secure Cloud Gateway is encrypted and authenticated.Additionally, the access rights of the LEG can be managed directly from CymID on the Secure Cloud Gateway to make sure that only authorized devices can communicate.
More info: https://www.h2020-drive.eu/.