CHALLENGE: Demand response (DR) is central to the successful evolution of a new low carbon electricity system in order to deliver grid flexibility & stability, however it is progressing slowly in the EU due to technological barriers which prevent widespread uptake: high in cost hardware (€4.000 - €6.000); not specifically designed for DR → lack critical functionality (e.g. wireless communication, integration of renewables); & not sufficiently open for wider industry participation. PROPOSED SOLUTION: To address the need for innovations that overcome principal barriers to DR, this project seeks to advance KPLs Energy Management Platform, KEMP, from a prototype demonstrated in a relevant environment (TRL6) to complete & qualified commercial prototype (TRL8). KEMP is a low cost, automated ancillary services platform which consists of: [1] Unique hardware: multi-asset control; first platform to integrate renewable assets; wireless communication between assets → reduced installation cost; & sec. by sec. meter readings – requirement for Frequency Response programmes. [2] Innovative software: cloud based – for greater scalability; flexibility & remote monitoring, forecasting model - for integration of renewables; & optimisation engine - to max. revenues. END USERS: [1] Initial target = large scale commercial & industrial (C&I) orgs with high MW capacity (>1MW) e.g. financial, telecoms, hospitals, hotels etc. Asset types: DRUPS systems & HVAC. [2] Secondary target = SMEs with low MW capacity (50kW< capacity < 1MW) incl. Water Pump Stations, Small Data Centres, Retail Stores. Asset types: Variable Speed Motors, HVAC, UPS systems etc. STUDY OBJECTIVES: tech validation, market analysis, economic & business assessment, operational capacity analysis. Activities will be delivered within a 4 month period, & result in a comprehensive feasibility report detailing the next steps towards development & commercialisation, forming the basis of the SMEI Phase II Business Plan.

NOVICE will develop and demonstrate a new business model in building renovation to better monetize energy efficiency by consolidating services and subsequent revenue streams from both energy savings and demand response. In order to do so NOVICE introduces new actors (aggregators) in building energy upgrade projects and fosters their collaboration with ESCOs, financing institutions, facilities management companies, engineering consultants to facilitate the roll out of the dual (grid services and energy efficiency) energy services model. The main business bond to be forged between ESCOs and Aggregators through NOVICE will allow their seamless collaboration in exploiting economies of scope and scale along with risk sharing on implementing building energy renovations. That business relationship will take the form of a MoU and will result in the composition of a new enhanced EPC template that can deliver the successful deployment of the dual energy services scheme in building renovation. The enhanced EPC template and the overall dual energy services scheme will be scrutinized by a financing institution to assess its bankability and identify the appropriate financing mechanisms for initiating and rolling out investments under that scheme. NOVICE throughout its duration targets to trigger the initiation of more than 20.8 m EUR of investments in building renovation based on the dual energy services model that will result in primary energy savings of more than 25.2 GWh/year. To achieve that target NOVICE brings together a highly experienced consortium that consists of stakeholders from the entire value chain (research institutions, technology vendors, engineering consultants and facilitators, Aggregators, ESCOs, Financing institutions, Facilities Management companies) of building renovation. Strong participation of SMEs (6 out 9 partners) demonstrate the commercial exploitation potential of the NOVICE outputs and supports the successful rollout of the NOVICE business model.

DELTA proposes a DR management platform that distributes parts of the Aggregator’s intelligence into lower layers of a novel architecture, based on VPP principles, in order to establish a more easily manageable & computationally efficient DR solution, ultimately aiming to introduce scalability & adaptiveness into the Aggregator’s DR toolkits; the DELTA engine will be able to adopt & integrate multiple strategies & policies provided from its energy market stakeholders, making it authentically modular & future-proof. DELTA will also deliver a fully autonomous architectural design, enabling end-users to escape the hassle of responding to complex price/incentive-based signals, while facilitating active, aware & engaged prosumers, based on innovative award schemes, a social collaboration platform & enhanced DR visualisation. Provision of full-scale market & grid services will be made possible by delivering explicit & implicit-based DR elasticity services, while pushing current market regulatory limitations so that they can be surpassed, and satisfying potential grid constraints related to flexibility activation through Multi-Factor Forecasting and Deep Reinforcement Learning Profiling. Furthermore, DELTA will propose & implement novel multi-agent based, self-learning energy matchmaking algorithms to enable aggregation, segmentation & coordination of several diverse supply & demand clusters, designed end-to-end using well-known, open protocols (i.e. OpenADR), for increasing interoperability. DELTA will set the milestone for data security in future DR applications by not only implementing novel block-chain methods & authentication mechanisms, but also by making use of Smart Contracts which would further secure & facilitate Aggregators-to-Prosumers transactions. Two pilots in UK & Cyprus will realise the DELTA concept, covering a wide variety of residential/tertiary loads (>11GWh), RES generation (>14GWh) & energy storage systems (>9MWh) (average annual measurements).

Smart automated Demand Response (DR) represents a valid alternative to grid reinforement for electricity Distribution System Operators (DSOs) to procure in a cost-effective way the necessary flexibility for integrating larger shares of intermittent RESs, while not compromising security of supply and network reliability. However DR potential has been exploited so far to a very limited extent due to a number of technological, regulatory, economic barriers. To cope with these challenges, eDREAM will develop and make available a novel near real time DR scalable secure blockchain-driven technological and business framework aimed to optimize aggregated system services flexibility provisioning to DSOs. The project will research and develop tools and services for: i) optimal DR system design, which includes early detection of flexibility potential via multimodal fusion of aerial, LIDAR and thermal imaging, end users profiling and segmentation by leveraging on big data clustering and large data sets visual interactive exploration and DR optimization services for energy end users; ii) optimal DSO-driven Demand Response management, including novel applications of blockchain decentralized ledger for secure data handling, market-based microgrid control and near real time closed loop DR verification aimed to improve system observability and enable fair DR financial settlement. Novel flexibility market and services/products design, as well as cooperative DSO-aggregator business models enabled by incentive sharing will validate the eDREAM DR technical concept from the economic perspective. The eDREAM technologies will be extensively validated in a lab-based pilot (Greece), followed by two field pilots, a C&I VPP-based optimal aggregated flexibility management in UK and a mixed stationary and movable (EVs) loads flexibility microgrid-level optimized flexibility management in Italy.

HOLISDER introduces a Holistic Demand Response Optimization Framework that will enable significant energy costs reduction (~45%) at the consumer side, while introducing buildings as a major contributor to energy networks’ stability in response to network constraints and conditions. HOLISDER brings together a wide range of mature technologies and integrates them in an open and interoperable framework, comprising in a fully-fledged suite of tools addressing the needs of the whole DR value chain. In this way it will ensure consumer empowerment/transformation into active market players, through the deployment of a variety of implicit and hybrid DR schemes, supported by a variety of end-user applications for Personalized Informative Billing, Human-Centric Energy Management, Load Scheduling and Intelligent Controls, Self-consumption promotion and cost-effective storage, Predictive Maintenance, along with Context-Aware Automation. The backbone of HOLISDER project consists in an “open” and modular interoperability and data management framework that will enable open standards-based communication along the DR value chain. It will integrate two main commercial technologies/ products (JACE, EF-i) to ensure seamless information exchange, communication and operation on top of any Building and District EMS, as well as, Smart Home systems/devices. On the business side HOLISDER will focus on the definition of new business models for intermediaries and third parties (aggregators, energy retailers, facility managers, ESCOs) that will facilitate consumers’ involvement into energy markets by acting on their behalf and making the most out of their flexibility value. The HOLISDER framework will be validated in 4 large-scale demonstrators/pilot sites, located in Greece, UK, Finland and Serbia, incorporating diverse building types, heterogeneous home, building and district EMS and devices, a variety of energy carriers and spanning diverse climatic conditions, demographics and cultures.