ICT tools for enabling smart grid players' flexibility through VPP and DR services

Abstract

The European plan on climate change consists of a range of measures to fight against climate change, one of which is to reach 20% of renewable energy in the total energy consumption in the EU by 2020. The increasing penetration of RES and DG introduces new business cases which require innovative ICT tools and the support of appropriate communication infrastructure. This paper focuses on the Virtual Power Plant and Demand Response cases, proposing a general architecture as well as analyzing core functionalities, information and communication requirements, along with relative standards and technologies. The architectural analysis is based on the SGAM framework, a standardized architecture for smart grid solutions and services that allows new distribution grid players to participate in the energy markets and contribute to an optimal grid operation. The document presents the realized use cases' modeling and gives an overview of the pilots in which the proposed models will be materialized and validated.

PyLESA: A Python modelling tool for planning-level Local, integrated, and smart Energy Systems Analysis

“…For example, this could be designing a system consisting of a heat pump with a thermal store controlled to turn on when there is local excess generation of wind power [8]. These require connected systems to facilitate logic decisions based on external signals [9]. Tools such as EnergyPLAN [10] have been used to model smart energy systems, however, this tool is better suited at the national-scale and relies primarily on exogenous supply and demand profile inputs.…”

Applying the Smart Grid Architecture Model for Designing and Validating System-of-Systems in the Power and Energy Domain: A European Perspective

“…The SmarterEMC2 project aims at ICT integration with power systems for enhancing various Smart Grids services. The main objective of the project is to propose business models and to develop the necessary ICT tools to support Customer Side Participation (CSP), increase Renewable Energy Sources (RES) penetration, and foster the participation in the electricity market [67]. Virtual Power Plant and Demand Response cases are presented, proposing a general architecture, as well as analyzing core functionalities, information and communication requirements, along with relative standards and technologies.…”

“…Virtual Power Plant and Demand Response cases are presented, proposing a general architecture, as well as analyzing core functionalities, information and communication requirements, along with relative standards and technologies. The SGAM was used for the methodological perspective and it turned out to be extremely helpful by providing a more systemic view of the applications and exposing a number of interoperability and operational issues that would otherwise endanger the robustness of the ICT tools to be implemented [67].…”

Decentralized Provision of Renewable Predictions Within a Virtual Power Plant

“…The interface between the VPP and DERs was designed with an information model in [20] so that the VPP can make full use of the aggregated flexibility of those resources. A general architecture as well as the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure for VPP operation were presented in [21]. A case was tested in [22] regarding the VPP communication system providing manual frequency restoration reserve service.…”