cyberGRID Software to Connect 2,000 Flexible Energy Assets in Pan-European Interoperability Project
VIENNA, June 4, 2020 (Newswire.com) - Project InterConnect was launched by the European Commission in October 2019 to address the need for more efficient energy management in smart homes and buildings. Involving eleven countries, this four-year project gathers 51 European institutions to develop and demonstrate interoperable solutions for seamlessly connecting smart households and commercial sites with the electrical grid, based on a real-time Internet of Things (IoT) architecture.
Lead by the Portuguese R&D institution INESC TEC, this project reflects the ongoing initiative in the energy sector of becoming a sharing economy where the underlying systems are enabled to “talk” to each other.
As an example of this sharing economy, a participating smart home equipped with a cloud platform can send information about unused energy in the user’s home heating system to a Distribution System Operator (DSO) who then makes this energy resource available in the overall electrical grid by means of a Virtual Power Plant (VPP). This functionality not only helps to minimize the cost of electricity, but it also maximizes energy that has already been produced, not letting it be wasted.
Seven large-scale pilot demonstrations
To achieve a relevant testing size for the project, seven large-scale pilots with end-users in different countries are currently being set up and tested to ensure the number of appliances and services used in the project are representative. Using its award-winning Flexibility Aggregation Platform, cyberGRID will lead efforts to connect all pilots, pool the flexibilities offered from these demos, and channel the flexibility to TSO or DSO. Experienced in system integration, cyberGRID’s contribution to this multi-national project will ensure a seamless digital communication between the various pilot sites.
InterConnect is about Interoperability
For smart households, the benefits are two-fold: Apart from enjoying greater control over equipment from different manufacturers, users now interconnected with truly interoperable digital communication solutions will also gain increased awareness of their energy consumption.
“Interoperability in smart grids comes with evident benefits: Not only can a greater number of distributed energies be smoothly integrated into the electrical system, thereby saving energy resources, but at the end of the project, the various energy players, even households, can also reduce their electricity bill while participating in more profitable markets, sometimes even cross-border,” explains Cami Dodge-Lamm, cyberGRID’s project manager.
Watch a video on the InterConnect YouTube channel.
cyberGRID's flexibility management platform enables the integration of renewable energies and battery storage systems by means of a virtual power plant (VPP).
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For more information, please contact:
Peter Nemcek, CTO
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The InterConnect project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 857237.
Source: cyberGRID GmbH & Co KG
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Tags: battery, electricity interoperability DSO renewable energies, flexibility, green energies
