Testing and validating INVADE: The pilots

By Mari Kristine Buckholm, Smart Innovation Norway 8. June 2017

INVADE will implement large-scale pilots in five European countries. The purpose is to find flexible solutions and products ready for the market.

The INVADE platform will be integrated with existing infrastructure and systems at pilot sites in Norway, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Spain and Germany. The pilots will be validated through mobile, distributed and centralized use cases in the distribution grid by large-scale demonstrations.

An integration of the transport sector is represented in Norway and in the Netherlands; the two countries with the highest electric vehicle (EV) penetration worldwide.

Providing real data

The development of the platform is based on Big Data Analytics technology. The partners will test and update the platform using real data from the pilots in order to prepare a nearly-ready-for-market product.
“INVADE is spearheading the introduction of cyber-physical systems to the energy industry” says Jørgen Kildahl, former executive of the leading energy companies Statkraft and E.ON SE.

“Finally, we are on our way to delivering tools that thrive on complexity, allowing us to solve extremely complex problems, which legacy systems cannot handle. With the support from EU and our partners, INVADE will conquer new territory and erect cairns for others to follow”, he adds.

1st pilot site: Stavanger (Norway) 

In Norway, effect-based tariffs are emerging and will be implemented during the next two years. Combined with the highest EV density in Europe, this makes so-called vehicle-to-home (V2H) systems relevant, as the economic incentives for end-customers are getting a considerable boost. Vehicle-to-home allows you to supply your home with energy stored in an electric vehicle (EV) battery.

Stavanger in Norway has been chosen as the pilot site and the distribution system operator (DSO) Lyse is the responsible stakeholder.

“The idea is that Lyse will install solar panels and household batteries in ten to fifteen homes in Stavanger. Also, they will run a venue of charge points for electric vehicles and combine them with solar panels and renewable energies”, says Dr. Jayaprakash Rajasekharan, Senior Researcher Energy Systems at Smart Innovation Norway.

Dr. Jayaprakash Rajasekharan. SMART INNOVATION NORWAY

He explains that the Norwegian pilot will affect the public in two ways: Firstly, it maximizes the integration of renewable energy into the household, which means being socially responsible and going green. Secondly, it is cost-minimizing. If you charge your EV or battery during the peak of the energy production and store the energy for when it is needed, this will minimize your electricity bill. In other words, the EVs and batteries serve as buffers.

“It helps the people schedule their energy consumption and provides a certain level of self-sustainability. For people who would like to be a bit more independent and not completely relying on their grid, like on the west coast of Norway where you have a great deal of cyclones and storms, these solutions can be extremely useful. So, there are several ways in which you can quantify the benefits of batteries at a distributed level”, Dr. Rajasekharan emphasizes.

“The pilot will have a great impact on both national and European level, due to its strong focus on combining technology, digitalization, end-user focus, regulation and business models”, he adds.

2nd pilot site: Noord-Brabant (The Netherlands) 

This pilot will cover three domains and two different approaches to charging electric vehicles on renewable energy. GreenFlux and ElaadNL are the stakeholders responsible for the pilot.

“They want to test several scenarios. In the first you have one household with one solar panel on its roof and one charging point for its car. The question will be; how can you maximize the energy that you produce? The second scenario is where you have multiple solar panels and charge points at a mall or huge commercial establishment. The EVs will be charged when locally produced energy is available. We can develop several business models related to this, for example ‘charge as you park’. The parking and charging could be very cheap”, says Dr. Rajasekharan.

The third scenario explores setting up charge points in the public domain, where everybody can charge their electric vehicles. In this case, charging will not be based on the availability of local renewable energy but on the total amount of renewable energy in the national system.

The Dutch pilot will be the first comparison between grid-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-grid.  It will provide the first scalable solutions for driving on renewable energy and it will be the first European realization of smart charging using only open and standardized communication protocols.

3rd pilot site: Albena (Bulgaria) 

In Bulgaria, centralized electrical energy storage will be installed at a transformer substation site. The transformer station supplies two hotels, restaurants, a spa center, swimming pools, etc. in Albena.

“The pilot will purely serve a commercial entity, a hotel. It is going to be very interesting. A large solar panel system will be installed on the rooftop to cover the daily peak of electricity consumption. The hotel will benefit hugely from this, because they will not have to rely on the grid all the time”, says Dr. Rajasekharan.

He explains that the increased share of renewable energy for self-consumption will reduce energy costs for the hotel owner. In addition, it will reduce CO2 emissions and grid costs for the local DSO.

4th pilot site: Granollers (Spain) 

The pilot will take place in the city of Granollers in Catalonia where there is a secondary substation which supplies the headquarters of the DSO and several private households. The issue is that in the event of a blackout impacting both, all services will be down. The current alternative is to have a generator ready for use, which means storing fuel and an expensive investment.

“Consumers such as hospitals, police stations, and utilities among others, which are connected to secondary substations and shared with other consumers, have specific quality of service and endurance needs. This pilot aims at demonstrating that a centralized storage system shared with other users, is a safe, reliable and emission-free alternative, which will cover a gap of two hours without using a generator – and thus no emissions”, explains Dr. Rajasekharan.

The storage system will provide the network with a reliable and efficient energy backup, as well as a new business model for daily use by households sharing storage capacity. The local DSO Estabanell will be the responsible stakeholder.

“They are going to test different services, like reactive power management and voltage power management. This will attribute to the quality of power that you get into your home. They want cost-minimization and, of course, to integrate renewable energies as much as possible”, notes Dr. Rajasekharan.

5th pilot site: Dagebüll (Germany) 

In Germany, there is a tendency to intensify the utilization of the energy storage technologies. NewEn will lead the pilot implementation at Dagebüll, where they will create a scenario that is based on the combination of smaller storages in private households and bigger storages for bulk players.

“We are going to test a combination of centralized and distributed energy storage. We will install small batteries in at least ten different households, plenty of distributed solar panels and use large wind parks. We are going to explore how to effectively manage the system and what sort of benefits can we leverage. There will be a lot of trade-offs and the pilot will be very interesting”, says Dr. Rajasekharan.

Installing batteries in private households creates direct experience relevant for the possibility of integrating storages in Germany. This promotes acceptance and proves the benefit of demand-response in private households. Increasing self-consumption ratios and reducing costs is an important goal for private households.

“The project may work as a sample project for the community and can be seen as a first step to increase the ratio of locally consumed energy supporting local added values”, explains Dr. Rajasekharan.

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