The pinnacle of community driven urban energy transition are Positive Energy Districts (PED). They improve energy efficiency, integrate local renewables and excess heat more effectively and enable interaction with the energy and non-energy sectors like mobility, ICT and industry. A crucial, and often neglected complication is that PEDs are in constant evolution. This is due to ever-evolving changes in their environment: social context, legislation, energy market, increased electric vehicles, etc. As such, there is a strong analogy with the theory of evolution. Although the DNA between PEDs varies, the implementation and evolution of different PEDs is not a process of chance: the environment determines the probability of success in the urban energy transition. The PEDvolution project paves the way for cross-sectoral integration of ever-evolving PEDs. This over a duration of three years, consisting of three consecutive phases: analyse, co-develop and demonstrate. European pioneers in PED conceptualisation, implementation and tool development will co-develop and implement seven interoperable solutions accommodating the constant evolution of PEDs: 1) PED Design and Planning Toolset, 2) PED Readiness Assessment, 3) Dynamic Decision Support Guideline for PED Development, 4) PED Energy Manager, 5) Data Exchange, Integration and Interoperability Platform, 6) PED Business Models, 7) Social Innovation tool. These PEDvolution solutions will evaluate and improve the ‘PED Readiness Level’ according to the four genes of the PED genotype: social, technology, interoperability, and market. These are influenced by their interaction within the PED and its environment (PED phenotype). At least six real-life PEDs across Europe, will provide a demonstration and validation environment for the solutions, paving the way for replication, upscaling and mainstreaming.

With the dramatic growth of renewables, now is the time to revise the VPP concept. VPPs need to support not only the promotion of intermittent renewables (RES) but also the integration of all Distributed Energy Resources (DER) into the full scope of grid operations. Such a leap raises challenges: optimal combination of DER and RES in a new generation of VPPs is needed to jointly provide grid supportive flexibility with slow reaction time known from day-head and intra-day markets, as well as real-time reaction to provide fast frequency and inertial response and dynamic-phasor driven voltage control ancillary services. In a nutshell, in a DER-based power electronics-driven network VPPs need to play all the roles that synchronous machines play in a traditional system. Flexibility can be provided by going beyond electrochemical storage and exploring opportunities offered by Power2X or inverters. Demand Side Management or low-cost solutions such as Power2Heat could be deployed in a neighbourhood expanding the concept of VPPs to the concept of a Local Energy Communities. EdgeFLEX links technical solutions to societal expectations. Short reaction times can be addressed by 5G-powered edge clouds linking dispersed devices in near real-time. In this respect, a new concept of VPPs, with communications corresponding to multiple layers of dynamics, becomes possible. EdgeFLEX proposes a new architecture for VPPs deploying such a multi-layer solution, paving the way for a fully renewable energy system. VPPs are brought to a new level, enabling them to interact on markets offering various ancillary services to System Operators. EdgeFLEX will develop this next generation VPP concept and demonstrate it in the context of 3 field trials and lab tests. It will explore innovative optimisations, financial tools and business scenarios for VPPs and assess the economic and societal impact. It will actively work to remove barriers by contributing to standards and European level regulation.

The GOFLEX project will innovate, integrate, further develop and demonstrate a group of electricity smart-grid technologies, enabling the cost-effective use of demand response in distribution grids, increasing the grids’ available adaptation capacity and safely supporting an increasing share of renewable electricity generation. The GOFLEX smart grid solution will deliver flexibility that is both general (across different loads and devices) and operational (solving specific local grid problems). GOFLEX enables active use of distributed sources of load flexibility to provide services for grid operators, balance electricity demand and supply, and optimize energy consumption and production at the local level of electricity trading and distribution systems. Building on top of existing, validated technologies for capturing and exploiting distributed energy consumption and production flexibility, GOFLEX enables flexibility in automatic trading of general, localized, device-specific energy as well as flexibility in trading aggregated prosumer energy. Generalized demand-response services are based on transparent aggregation of distributed, heterogeneous resources to offer virtual-power-plant and virtual-storage capabilities. The sources of load flexibility include thermal (heating/cooling) and electric storage (electric vehicles charging/discharging). A backbone data-services platform offers localised estimation and short-term predictions of market and energy demand/generation, and flexibility in order to support effective data-driven decisions for the various stakeholders. Smart-grid technologies, such as increased observability and congestion management, contribute to the platform. Over 36 months, GOFLEX will demonstrate the benefits of the integrated GOFLEX solution in three use-cases, covering a diverse range of structural and operational distribution grid conditions in three European countries.

FEVER will implement and demonstrate solutions and services that leverage flexibility towards offering electricity grid services that address problems of the distribution grid, thus enabling it to function in a secure and resilient manner. The project encompasses technologies and techniques for extraction of energy flexibilities from virtual and explicit energy storage (batteries, V2G) and demand response. FEVER will leverage the potential for flexibility due to the electrification of sectors such as heating (heat pumps, district heating) and cooling (e.g. industrial refrigeration). In FEVER we will implement a comprehensive flexibility aggregation, management and trading solution that incorporates intelligence around the optimal flexibility orchestration and is capable to offer flexibility services in different markets (local, wholesale). In addition, a peer-to-peer flexibility trading toolbox will be implemented with a distributed ledger technology enabling autonomous peer-to-peer trading. FEVER will implement a set of goal-oriented applications and tools that empower DSOs with optimal grid observability and controllability. The DSO toolbox will include advanced monitoring and automated control functions (critical event prevention, self-healing, island-mode power management, etc.). FEVER will carry out extensive demonstration and testing activities in multiple settings. For scalability assessment the project includes large scale simulations of novel market mechanisms for day-ahead and continuous trading of flexibility services, and simulations of wholesale-retail market coupling.These simulations will contribute to the quantification of the impact of flexibility services at the distribution grid level and beyond (transmission level). FEVER’s holistic approach to flexibility will facilitate establishing and operating appropriate business models for all players in the market, thereby providing the EU with a secure, efficient and resilient electric grid.