As one of the lead consortium partners, UBITECH ENERGY kicks off the OneNet Innovation Action towards a single, smart European electricity grid

UBITECH ENERGY participates at the virtual kick-off meeting hosted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (October 29, 2020) of the OneNet Innovation Action, officially started on October 1st, 2020. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 957739) and spans on the period October 2020 – September 2023. The vision of OneNet is to provide a seamless integration of all the actors in the electricity network across Europe to create the conditions for a synergistic operation that optimizes the overall energy system while creating an open and fair market structure. This synergistic process is enabled by open IT architectures that guarantee continental level interoperability. This new open architecture will provide new market mechanisms encouraging new business models which will be developed to support both large population areas and small- and medium-sized DSOs and TSOs, in Europe. OneNet will develop a unique concept of scalable interoperable data management able to unlock flexibility at European level creating fair conditions for all the stakeholders. OneNet will have an agnostic approach to define solutions that are not only open today but also open to future development.

 

While the electrical grid is moving from being a fully centralized to a highly decentralized system, grid operators have to adapt to this changing environment and adjust their current business model to accommodate faster reactions and adaptive flexibility. This is an unprecedented challenge requiring an unprecedented solution. For this reason, the two major associations of grid operators in Europe, ENTSO-E and EDSO, have activated their members to put together a unique consortium. Thus, OneNet sees the participation of a consortium of over 70 partners. Key partners in the consortium include: already mentioned ENTSO-E and EDSO, Elering, EDP Distribution, RWTH Aachen University, University of Comillas, VITO, European Dynamics, UBITECH ENERGY, Engineering, and the EUI’s Florence School of Regulation (Energy). In this context, the OneNet project aims to address the growing needs of TSO‘s and DSO’s to have real-time insight into the operation of their networks to work in a closely coordinated and synergistic way, while unlocking and enabling new flexibility markets in a fair and open way. Goal is to enable a cost effective, seamless and secure bidirectional power flow to and from network customers as active players while supporting grid operators in their system responsibilities.

Within OneNet, UBITECH ENERGY is the Leader of WP2 “Products and services definition in support of OneNet”, while it will have significant participation as Task Leader and participant in all the others Work Packages. In particular, UBITECH ENERGY revisits European policy frameworks and strongly engages the consumers in order to maximize the flexibility resources that the grid operators can use to meet the clean energy challenges. Moreover, UBITECH ENERGY assures that all legal, regulatory and cybersecurity guidelines and principles are incorporated in the design and the development of the OneNet Interoperable Network of platforms. Emphasis will be given in guaranteeing the security of the individual subsystems, in order to address security concerns, in relation to receiving and sending information and sensitive data, in a satisfactory way. In terms of the monitoring elements that will offer the real-time view of the security posture, this involves collecting data from two levels of sources: network infrastructure level and endpoint level. Network infrastructure level datasets allow to observe threats in a wider scope, whereas endpoint datasets are mostly application specific, allowing the in-depth analyses of threats specific to a certain application type. UBITECH ENERGY develops new security mechanisms to characterize different types of data flows using anomaly detection techniques based on different theoretical backgrounds, learning methods (e.g. clustering).

Finally, as highly competent in the energy services sector, UBITECH ENERGY is well positioned to exploit its strong image and connections to promote the project´s outcomes. Through its wide network of business and academic institutions that is cooperating with, will hold customer innovation events, customer specific innovation workshops through established technical innovation mechanisms, such as R&I organizations and Scientific Communities.

OneNet First Press Release is here!

15 October 2020 – European Commission funded project “OneNet” launched on 1 October 2020 to tackle the challenges posed to TSOs, DSOs, and Consumers in the European electricity market.

 

The project OneNet (One Network for Europe) is funded through the EU’s eighth Framework Programme Horizon 2020. It is titled TSO – DSO Consumer: Large-scale demonstrations of innovative grid services through demand response, storage and small-scale (RES) generation and responds to the call “Building a low-carbon, climate resilient future (LC)”.

 

While the electrical grid is moving from being a fully centralized to a highly decentralized system, grid operators have to adapt to this changing environment and adjust their current business model to accommodate faster reactions and adaptive flexibility. This is an unprecedented challenge requiring an unprecedented solution. For this reason, the two major associations of grid operators in Europe, ENTSO-E and EDSO, have activated their members to put together a unique consortium.

 

Under the leadership of Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT) (coordinator Prof. Antonello Monti) and its Center for Digital Energy, the project OneNet aims at developing and demonstrating the key instruments for a European approach to energy flexibility. Many projects addressed this issue in the past, but OneNet’s scope and size are unparalleled with a total budget of over 28M Euro (co-funding of the European Commission of about 22M Euro).

 

OneNet will see the participation of a consortium of over 70 partners. Key partners in the consortium include: already mentioned ENTSO-E and EDSO, Elering, EDP Distribution, RWTH Aachen University, University of Comillas, VITO, European Dynamics, Ubitech, Engineering and the EUI’s Florence School of Regulation (Energy).

 

The key elements of the project are:

  • Definition of a common market design for Europe: this means standardized products and key parameters for grid services which aim at the coordination of all actors, from grid operators to customers;
  • Definition of a Common IT Architecture and Common IT Interfaces: this means not trying to create a single IT platform for all the products but enabling an open architecture of interactions among several platforms so that anybody can join any market across Europe; and
  • Large-scale demonstrators to implement and showcase the scalable solutions developed throughout the project. These demonstrators are organized in four clusters coming to include countries in every region of Europe and testing innovative use cases never validated before.

 

OneNet is an open project; it will benefit from cascade funding from the European Commission, and from the addition of new members to the consortium in the coming three years.

 

OneNet calls for the creation of a unified vision for Europe’s electricity market to which operators, consumers and stakeholders across Europe are urged to contribute.  To this end, throughout the project duration and afterwards, the project will develop and maintain the open forum initiative “GRIFOn”, a platform to freely discuss results with all relevant stakeholders external to the project and collect their feedback.

 

 

About:

The OneNet project is part of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme open call: BUILDING A LOW-CARBON, CLIMATE RESILIENT FUTURE: SECURE, CLEAN AND EFFICIENT ENERGY | Call ID: H2020-LC-SC3-2018-2019-2020 LC-SC3-ES-5-2018-2020

 

 

Useful links:

https://onenet-project.eu/

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/957739

https://www.fit.fraunhofer.de/

https://fsr.eui.eu/

 

 

Contacts:

Prof. Antonello Monti, Ph.D

Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik FIT

Schinkelstr. 2

52062 Aachen

Telefon +49 241 80-49700

UBITECH ENERGY kicks off the IANOS Innovation Action on Decarbonization and Smartification of Islands

UBITECH ENERGY participates in the virtual kick-off meeting, hosted by CNET (October 7-8, 2020), of the IANOS Innovation Action, officially started on October 1st, 2020. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 957810) and spans on the period October 2020 – September 2024. The IANOS project aims to demonstrate, under real-life operational conditions, a group of both technological and non-technological solutions adapted to harsh islandic conditions, in two (2) Lighthouse (LH) islands, covering a multitude of energy supply, storage and end-use vectors on different climatic and socio-economic conditions, while taking the appropriate measures for their replication into three (3) Fellow islands.

 

In order to tackle the system resilience challenge, IANOS focuses in the maximization of flexibility harnessing and provision along with self-consumption capability, through the utilization of distributed RE and storage technologies. Operational linkage and coordination of the energy vectors (electricity, thermal, fuels) is performed through multi-source energy storage, demand response (DR) and Power-to-X technologies (i.e. power-to-gas, power-to-hydrogen, power-to-heat, power-to-mobility), supported by an intelligent Virtual Power Plant platform (iVPP). The iVPP design aims in optimal modularity and scalability, offering secured monitoring, aggregation and predictive energy management features, complemented by a set of cloud and fog-enabled software and hardware modules, oriented to serve the needs of island energy market stakeholders.

At the planning level, IANOS streamlines the decision-making process towards tailor-made solutions considering islands’ specific traits, through the Island Energy Planning and Transition Suite (IEPT). IANOS adopts a LEC – oriented design, in which the policy/ regulations decision makers, small prosumers, large energy providers are empowered to create synergies, exchange knowledge and lead community-driven RE investments, also reaping the benefits of their active participation in transactive energy programs and services.

IANOS is helping reimagine future EU Islands through a strong decarbonization strategy. For this purpose, the project takes specific actions into implementing the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) and ensuring long-term EU technological competitiveness by testing innovative energy technologies on islands, establishing their cost-competitiveness and performances under harsh environments. IANOS focuses on facilitating the opportunities for local and regional governments to capitalise on cooperation with other islands and accelerate the transformation towards energy sustainability by increasing their capacity in restructuring the current island governance models into more islander-centric ones with clear action plans supported by the island public authorities and services.

Within IANOS, UBITECH ENERGY leads the implementation of the Transition and Investment Decision Support Framework, which constitutes a concrete energy planning and decision-making toolkit to assist the energy transition of geographical islands, integrating a a) dedicated web platform for LCA/LCC studies, b) an equity crowdfunding tool, c) blended with power system modelling and simulation tools and d) a Cost-Benefit tool. In particular, UBITECH ENERGY integrates the LCA/LCC tool for Transition Support and the Equity Crowdfunding tool for Community-driven Investments with power system modelling and simulation tools (INTEMA, Stochastic Load Flow, Monte Carlo Resources adequacy modeling, Stability assessment, Unit Commitment, Reserves Planning), in order to deliver a holistic toolset able to evaluate the overall benefits expected from clean energy/smart grid interventions, from various perspectives, based on the viewpoint from each stakeholder (e.g. Municipality, DSO and community representatives).

UBITECH ENERGY kicks off the TIGON Innovation Action on Intelligent DC-based hybrid Grids

UBITECH ENERGY participates in the virtual kick-off meeting, hosted by CIRCE (September 22, 2020), of the TIGON Innovation Action, officially started on September 1st, 2020. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 957769) and spans on the period September 2020 – August 2024. The TIGON project aims to enable a smooth deployment and integration of intelligent DC-based grid architectures within the current energy system, while providing ancillary services to the main network. To do so, TIGON proposes a four-level approach aiming at improving (1) Reliability, (2) Resilience (3) Performance, and (4) Cost Efficiency of hybrid grids through the development of an innovative portfolio of power electronic solutions and software systems and tools focused on the efficient monitoring, control and management of DC grids. These solutions will be demonstrated in two main Demo-Sites located in France and Spain.

 

TIGON has been conceived as a demonstration project for realizing about the potential of DC-grids in this new energy paradigm. To this end, main TIGON demo-sites rely on the integration of a high share of RES in MVDC and LVDC and their interaction with different AC and DC loads such as electric vehicles (EV) and energy storage systems (ESS), not only reducing energy losses but also optimizing the overall control and operation of the grid in a cost-effective and seamless manner. Main innovations within TIGON project will include smart transformers, innovative DC/DC converter topologies, PE for MVDC connection and DC protection systems. These developments will be supported by an adequate framework composed by modelling, simulation, control, optimization of generation and loads and security analysis activities. Only in this way will be TIGON able to demonstrate a comprehensive solution for DC-based hybrid grids that generates confidence on the market and lays down the foundations for their replication throughout the EU.

Within TIGON, UBITECH ENERGY designs and develops the Cybersecurity Defence System for the TIGON software-based monitoring, control and energy management applications, adhering to the latest Commission recommendations on cybersecurity in the energy sector of 3.4.2019 (C(2019) 2400 final), which strongly emphasize on cyber-resilience as a priority for energy network operators and technology suppliers. In particular, UBITECH ENERGY implements a fast, distributed security framework that intelligently incorporates the physical state of the defended system and blocks incorrect operation actions, incorporating detection of adversarial manipulation by cross-checking commands and configuration changes for consistency with the physical state of the system, while being deployable and interoperable with communication standards, specifying the threat models facing the DC and AC/DC hybrid grids and developing the relative defence mechanisms, realizing a complete implementation plan for cyber-resilience, including Vulnerability Assessment, Security Behaviour analysis, Anomaly Detection, Security Information and Event Management – focusing mostly on Data Integrity Attack scenarios, affecting horizontally all TIGON software-based tools for monitoring, control and energy management services.

FARCROSS first newsletter is now out and fresh

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UBITECH ENERGY kicks off Fresco project

UBITECH ENERGY participated in the virtual kick-off meeting, hosted by CIRCE (June 10, 2020), of the frESCO Innovation Action, which has officially started on June 1st, 2020. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 893857) and spans on the period June 2020 – November 2023. The vision of the frESCO project to engage with ESCOs and aggregators and enable the deployment of innovative business models, on the basis of novel energy and integrated energy service bundles that properly combine and remunerate local flexibility for optimizing local energy performance both in the form of energy efficiency (energy savings) and demand side management (demand response). Such new service and business models will bring under common Pay for Performance Contracts (extended form of current EPCs) two currently differentiated service offerings to enable the realization of next-generation smart energy service packages.

The frESCO service packages will combine moderate retrofitting services (smart equipment for data collection and remote/ automated control) with energy efficiency, distributed energy resources (generation and storage) with self-consumption optimization schemes and smart home automation with the provision of balancing and ancillary services to the grid (under the form of demand response), to engage residential consumers in energy efficiency/ grid optimization activity through integrated and tailor-made packages addressing different customer groups, their unique needs and preferences, without overlooking important aspects of the modern citizens demand for comfort and well-being (human-centric energy optimization).

Within frESCO, UBITECH ENERGY will actively participate in WP3, supporting CIRCE and CARTIF in the definition of the novel business models and frESCO service bundles and its validation in a simulation environment, respectively. Moreover, UBE will build on its expertise as SW tools developer for the energy sector in WP5, working closely with WP leader UBITECH and the module developers, particularly for the Advanced Performance Monitoring/ Forecasting Module for Generation/ Storage/ Demand Assets.

UBITECH Group undertakes the coordination and the technical leadership of the FARCROSS Innovation Action on regional cross-border electricity transmission

UBITECH and UBITECH ENERGY are hosting the kick-off meeting, in Athens, Greece (October 23-24, 2019), of the FARCROSS project, officially started on October  1st, 2019. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No 864274) and spans on the period October 2019 – September 2023. The FARCROSS project intends to connect major stakeholders of the energy value chain and demonstrate integrated hardware and software solutions that will facilitate the “unlocking” of the resources for the cross-border electricity flows and regional cooperation. The project will promote state-of-the art technologies to enhance the exploitation/capacity/efficiency of transmission grid assets, either on the generation or the transmission level. The hardware and software solutions will increase grid observability to facilitate system operations at a regional level, exploit the full potential of transmission corridors for increased electricity flows that will facilitate transition to flow-based regional market coupling; consider cross-border connections and their specific ICT and grid infrastructure; use a wide-area protection approach to ensure the safe integration of renewable energy sources into the grid; mitigate disturbances; increase power system stability.

 

In particular, an innovative regional forecasting platform will be demonstrated for improved prognosis of renewable generation and demand response and a capacity reserves optimization tool will be tested to maximize cross-border flows. The non-harmonization of national regulation will be studied, and measures will be recommended to avoid distortion of the technology benefits. FARCROSS will employ technological innovations -as described below- to bring forward the additional benefits gained by increasing interconnectivity between neighbouring systems that strongly align with EU vision and policy, and most importantly to:

  1. Successfully integrate large amounts of renewable generation. These resources are intermittent and there are advantages to geographic dispersion. FARCROSS proposed solutions can be used to increase cross-border flows allowing other countries from importing clean energy and to maximise EU-wide renewable generation.
  2. Reduce the need to build new infrastructure by first optimising the existing network, whereas at the same time to achieve reduced environmental impact compared to alternative options and minimise total costs to customers.
  3. Shorten connection lead-times, as FARCROSS solutions can be installed in relatively short timeframes, can minimise the grid modifications needed to integrate new sources of generation or serve as a bridge solution.

Furthermore, FARCROSS’s mains objectives can be categorised in six different sections:

  1. To test the state-of-the-art digital technologies, installed on the power grid and communication infrastructure, such as power flow controllers(MPFC), dynamic line rating sensing systems (DLR)  and wide-area monitoring systems (WAMS), for optimally exploiting and maximising the capacity and security of transmission corridors.
  2. To develop and introduce advanced software solutions, including capacity allocation and reserve optimisation tools, as well as an advanced forecasting of energy production and demand response platform, to increase the cross-border capacity and the potential of cross-border grid services.
  3. To design and propose a robust set of technical and market codes(pathways) that would enable the building up of the harmonisation of the network codes, and subsequently to the integration of national electricity markets -possibly via a regional route.
  4. To design and present a cost-benefit analysis (CBA), based on the outcomes and lessons learnt from the project implementations and demonstrations, to enhance the planning of cross-border infrastructure investments.
  5. To demonstrate the aforementioned hardware and software technologies and relevant concepts in realistic environments; the FARCROSS project engages TSOs and energy producers in 8 countries (Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania), focusing on illustrating specific functions and serving real need and existing challenges, engaging different actors of the energy value chain.
  6. To facilitate further research and new market opportunities across the energy industry by ensuring an efficient dissemination of the FARCROSS outcomes to key stakeholders

Within FARCROSS, UBITECH has the project coordination, overviewing all the activities taking place throughout the whole duration of the project, while UBITECH ENERGY has the central role in the project for the technical topics. UBITECH ENERGY has the  technical coordination, overviewing all the activities taking place throughout the whole duration of the project. It will coordinate closely with the WP leaders in order to fulfil the technical and business objectives of FARCROSS as well as overcome any challenges being faced during the implementation of the project plan. It will be responsible for the quality assurance of the work being delivered by the project participants, mitigate any risks, find solutions to any problems among partners and in general keep the project plan on track. Finally, UBITECH ENERGY will contribute in the cost benefit analysis, the evaluation, exploitation and dissemination of projects results and finally in the scalability and replicability plans at EU level.