Six month wrap-up
2020-04-15 16:00:00 +0000
FLEXGRID will develop a holistic energy market architecture aiming at maximizing social welfare
The EU Horizon 2020 project FLEXXGRID has just wrapped up its first six months. The three-year project started in October 2019 with the purpose of creating a novel smart grid architecture that facilitates high renewable energy source (RES) penetration through innovative markets towards efficient interaction between advanced electricity grid management and intelligent stakeholders.
![Prodromos Makris](/assets/images/akis_photo.jpg)
The idea behind the FLEXGRID project is to study in technical depth the
advanced interaction of existing electricity markets’ and electric grids’
operations.
For example, many of today’s electricity markets are operating without
considering the underlying network topology and constraints or just
considering rather simplistic, and thus inaccurate, network models,
explains Dr. Prodromos Makris, senior researcher at the National Technical
University of Athens (NTUA) in Greece, which coordinates the project.
He adds:
System Operators (DSOs/TSOs) opt for investing in new infrastructure in
order to reinforce their networks, which is generally much more costly, and
inefficient in the long term, than procuring flexibility services in a
market-based manner.
FLEXGRID’s idea is to bridge this gap by designing and developing holistic
energy market architectures that facilitate the interaction of electricity
markets and networks towards maximizing the social welfare
.
Win-win business context
Thus, the ultimate goal of the FLEXGRID project is to integrate more intelligence in existing software platforms and tools, which have been developed in the context of related Horizon 2020 projects.
An Automated Trading Platform (ATP) will be developed to facilitate the
automated, online and optimal trading of flexibility assets, realizing
‘win-win’ business contexts for energy market stakeholders at both FlexSupply
and FlexDemand sides of the market,
says Dr. Makris.
The FLEXGRID ATP may be owned by an independent Flexibility Market Operator (FMO) legal entity, who will realize revenues in the form of license fees paid by all involved FLEXGRID actors. Moreover, through FLEXGRID’s innovative market architecture (advanced mathematical modelling and research algorithms), it also facilitates innovative Energy Services that highly enhance the management efficiency of the various market stakeholders’ internal business portfolios.
Different partner objectives
Each FLEXGRID partner has set its own exploitation targets, representing eight European countries and different areas of expertise.
For example, being one of the most prestigious Flexibility Market Operators in Europe and worldwide, NODES aims at exploiting its commercial software platform by integrating FLEXGRID intelligence related with advanced market clearing models and algorithms, whereas Smart Innovation Norway (SIN) will use the FLEXGRID results to exploit its growing experience in facilitating the participation of mobile, distributed and centralized energy storage assets in novel flexibility markets for dealing with grid operation challenges. The next step for SIN is to coordinate the real market uptake of these solutions in the EU area and beyond.
German service utility bnNETZE will highly enhance its
real-life pilot in the Freiburg area by integrating FLEXGRID intelligence and
demonstrating even better results than the ones recently showcased in the
context of the Horizon 2020 energy storage flagship project, INVADE,
notes
Dr. Makris.
FLEXGRID’S impact on Europe
The NTUA senior researcher believes the FLEXGRID project will have an impact in Europe. According to him, it will help citizens and communities as well as grid infrastructures and energy market stakeholders.
FLEXGRID’s services will help citizens to enjoy advanced energy services at
lowest possible cost and to adopt energy efficiency best practices in their
lifestyle and contribute in the world’s CO2 decarbonization,
explains Dr.
Makris.
In addition, he emphasizes, the project will help communities to invest in clean energy technologies contributing in Europe’s energy autonomicity and towards energy democratization.
The services will help grid infrastructures to integrate high renewable
energy source volumes from distributed renewable generators without
jeopardizing required security of supply, and to operate the electricity
networks at the minimum possible cost by procuring flexibility services from
new emerging market stakeholders,
continues Dr. Makris.
Finally, energy market stakeholders (i.e. private companies) will be able to create new and financially sustainable business models, which will boost economic growth and sell competitive energy services throughout the globe.
FLEXGRID partners:
- Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS)/National Technical University of Athens (NTUA, Coordinator), Greece
- Etra Investigacion y Desarrollo SA, Spain
- Smart Innovation Norway AS (SIN), Norway
- Nord Pool Consulting AS (NPC), Norway
- NODES AS, Norway
- University of Cyprus (UCY), Cyprus
- University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG), Croatia
- Croatian Transmission System Operator Ltd. (HOPS), Croatia
- bnNETZE, Germany
- Denmark Technical University (DTU), Denmark
- Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH (AIT), Austria