At the 20th meeting of the ISGAN Executive Committee, Annex 6 ‘Power Transmission & Distribution Systems’ hosted a side event that showcased its recent work.

Firstly, the key messages of Annex 6 were presented, giving an overview of its four main focus areas and summarising the collaboration of its network of international experts.

Each of the focus areas is assigned to a focus area leader in charge of facilitating and consolidating the Annex’ work in accordance with its the objectives. Key messages of the Annex’ work were elaborated, based on three main perspectives:

1. Drivers for change according to generation, grid, and demand
2. Resulting consequences caused by increased challenges of maintaining secure operation and reliable long-term planning of the Power Transmission and Distribution System
3. Needs to ensure sustainability and security of supply, highlighting future requirements and adaptations with respect to technology, market innovations and policy

Secondly, the outcome of the Annex’ work on the topic ‘MEGA vs micro grids’ and related trends influencing the development of the power system was also presented.

In this regard, an overview of the respective grids and their topology was discussed. From the perspective of investment, it was shown that flexibility needs to consider energy in both time and space, due to the integration of a significant amount of RES. In both cases, MEGA and micro grids are able to integrate RES based on the maximization of local RES and optimization of system-wide energy resources respectively.

Furthermore, the activity contributed toward the policy brief distributed to the virtual CEM meeting. For further information please see:

• ISGAN website: http://www.iea-isgan.org/micro-vs-mega-grids/
• Policy brief distributed to the virtual CEM meeting: http://www.cleanenergyministerial.org/initiative-clean-energy-ministerial/international-smart-grid-action-network

Lastly, the outcome of the activity ‘Lessons learned from international projects on TSO-DSO interaction’ was presented. A video clip provided a high-level overview of the topic, in line with four key questions, consolidating the challenges, successes, lessons learned, and recommendations based on the experience of various projects on TSO-DSO interaction.

International collaboration is a powerful tool in understanding issues around flexibility market design. Understanding the implications of design decisions is greatly enhanced by access to insights from the widest possible range of existing markets and the ability to capture the whole spectrum of different market contexts, which will help generate a body of evidence that is rich and diverse in scope. It is foreseen that this body of evidence will in turn be useful to all partner countries in evaluating different architectures for their own systems.

The scope of this Annex is all aspects of market design for power system flexibility. This includes:

• the whole range of market timescales, from long term investment signals to second-to-second balancing and response;
• the whole physical system from large centralized generation to behind the meter sources of flexibility within domestic settings and interfaces with other vectors;
• all sources of value that flexibility conceivably could capture, going beyond MWh to include characteristics like voltage control, repeatability, inertia, locational constraint alleviation;
• and aspects of the market that go beyond the trading rules such as consumer support, or how obligations (such as with respect to grid stability) are understood and checked

The new operating agent will be Dr. Iliana Cardenes from the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Beneficiaries of this Annex will be all ISGAN participants, the IEA and the Clean Energy Ministerial, colleagues working in related campaigns such as the Power Systems Flexibility Campaign and Mission Innovation, and any stakeholders involved in the design and operation of energy markets. These comprise government departments at supranational, national and sub-national level (including cities), as well as regulatory authorities, and potential market participants who are currently experiencing difficulties in getting flexibility to market.

Results will be made available in the form of webinars, workshops, publications (Policy briefs, white papers, etc.), scientific publications, presentations at conferences, and social-media facilitated peer-to-peer discussion groups.

Yet another successful ISGAN Executive Committee meeting (ExCo21) took place online between 16th and 18th of March 2021.

ISGAN continues it’s cooperation with several other organizations and initiatives. These include large associations and initiatives, the World Bank, other TCPs; CEM, and other IEA organizations, the Global Smart Energy Federation (GSEF, formerly Global Smart Grids Foundation) and Mission Innovation (Power Mission). To ensure excellent communication with these initiatives, liaison persons from ISGAN were suggested and a dedicated breakout session was organized addressing the ways to enhance ISGAN collaborations and outreach.

Hungary is highly interested in joining our ranks and was represented by Dr. Katalin Véhmann, International Coordinator for Electricity from the EU Market Integration Unit in the Department of International Relations, who provided a presentation reporting on remote metering roll-out in Hungary, which is currently being installed and gave an overview of the progress over the last year by distribution system operator (DSO) companies.

AIT was selected for another term as ISGAN Co-Secretariat. Thanks for the excellent work in the past years as well as appraisal of the high quality of the proposal documents were expressed by the ExCo.

Several activities were presented in order to update ISGAN’s strategy and structure for the Request for Extension (RfE) process including the progress of the RfE team and the results of self-assessment of the existing Annexes.

The Operating Agents of the active Annexes reported to the ISGAN Executive Committee on the progress of ongoing work and planned activities.

• Annex 2: Case Books dedicated to outstanding smart grid applications
• Annex 3: Tools for the assessment of present smartness of electricity networks
• Annex 4: Organization of knowledge, key issues, insightful analysis for decision makers
• Annex 5: SIRFN . Smart grid research and testing facilities, test beds and protocols
• Annex 6: Improve understanding of smart grid technologies
• Annex 7: Governance and socio-technical issues associated with smart grids deployment
• Annex 8: ISGAN Academy – Continuous training on technical skills and updates in the field of smart grids
• Annex 9: aspects of market design for power system flexibility

Chloe Yoon, of the KSGI Co-Secretariat gave a status report on the current Awards competition and schedule. She reported on the CEM 11 activities as well as the ISGAN Award of Excellence 2020 and gave an outlook on 2021.

Luciano Martini closed ExCo21, thanking all participants for their active participation and expressing his hope that soon physical meetings will be possible again. The members of the Presidium expressed their pleasure about the very successful meeting and the fact that AIT and KSGI will continue their work as ISGAN Co-Secretariats.

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Since 2022, ISGAN changed its structure from the former Anexes to Working Groups.

To meet the required objective of this Annex, a program of work is designed and it includes the following three tasks:

• Task 1: Assess Current Network Maturity Model and Update data
• Subtask 1.1: Trial application of two network maturity analysis tools and results discussion
• Subtask 1.2: Development of the questionnaire for the assessment of the level of smartness of transmission and distribution networks

• Task 2: Analyze Current Benefit-Cost Analytical Methodologies and Tools
  • Subtask 2.1: Analyzing benchmark benefit-cost frameworks and tools
  • Subtask 2.2: Model research to overcome limit of current BCA frameworks and tools
• Task 3: Develop Toolkits to Evaluate Benefit-Costs
  • Subtask 3.1: Development of Simplified cost-benefits analysis tool
  • Subtask 3.2: Technical Analysis of current BCA took-kit and Modification of Simplified tool-kit

For Task I, the report goes through several maturity frameworks available, especially those of Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL). The SEI has developed a management tool that can be used to measure the current state of a smart grid project, aiming to help utilities to identify the target and build proper strategies to reach it. The tool, Smart Grid Maturity
Model (SGMM), utilizes a set of surveys called Smart Grid Compass. The drawback of this tool is the undocumented scoring method of the surveys once a result is obtained. Full assistance of an SGMM Navigator is required for the utility to understand and analyze the SGMM output. Meanwhile, the KUL introduce the characteristics, categories and key performance indicators of a smart electricity grid. The previous report also includes own survey methods developed by Annex III, although there has not much of progress after that.

For Task II, an extensive update of the BCA survey has been provided in the previous report. It started with various frameworks related to BCA, which include Frontier Economics and the Smart Grid Forum (SGF) in UK, Smart Grid Investment Model (SGIM) of SGRC, I
MPLAN Model, McKinsey Tool, and general overviews of EPRI’s methodology to BCA and its subsequent developments by DOE and JRC. After that, several BCA applications to country-specific or states cases are summarized. Some of the surveyed countries are Czech Republic, Netherland, Lithuania, Denmark, and USA states. For the comparison purpose, the summary for each case is carried out following some key points: background of the smart grid project, the methodology or toolkits used, the scope of the project (location, period, technologies), the list and definition of benefits and costs, and deliverables (results, recommendations, policy andregulations). The 1st year’s work of Task II can be compared with the previous year’s work in the sense that how EPRI guideline has any impact on the work development of JRC and DOE frameworks, especially for the Smart Grid Computational Tool (SGCT), a BCA toolkit that is developed by US DOE. This report summarizes the findings from the previous works with the focus of selecting the benchmark smart grid tool kit for the development of own ISGAN tool kit for member countries.

For Task III, a simplified cost-benefit analysis tool is being developed taking SGCT of DOE as a benchmark tool kit, based on the previous year report on the development plan of ISGAN member countries’ toolkit. A standalone program based on Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is now being developed replicating, revising and upgrading the currently available excel-based SGCT. As will be discussed, this tool kit has various advantages over other tools: First, this tool is open to public and anyone can take a look inside of the model deep enough to examine the visual basic application modules. JRCEU, McKinsey models were once discussed in Annex III before for any potential utilization for ISGAN member countries’ tool kit. However, members acknowledge the fact that JRC works on excel based format and there seems to be not much difference between JRC’s work and DOE. The difference lies in the fact that JRC never opened up the details of the functionalities and sample calculation of BC in their whole work process. McKinsey software was discussed but it is not open to public. Rather it is a commercial package with no specific advantage over to SGCT of DOE. Detailed engine is not fully explained and the scope of the analysis the tool kit provides does not seem to be very useful (Nigris 2012, Kim 2013). The new tool kit being developed is named for the time being as ‘Replicated Tool Kit’ for convenience. Through the replication process, a lot of details have been identified, which, otherwise, would not have been known to us. Many of the parameters utilized in the process of benefitcalculation may be required to be collected from outside, reflecting the region specific characteristics. Some of the default values provided by SGCT, although they are from USA case (refer to Appendix), may also be useful until those detailed information becomes available for ISGAN member countries even when they don’t have them.

In addition, there a at least 12 smart grid projects currently being conducted in USA (refer to III.2.24), and those projects are starting to produce some detailed information which might be potentially utilized by current SGCT. Not only those advantages, there are many interesting researches being conducted around the world and the work results could be very useful sources of updating this replication effort in the future, once this replication process allows us to identify the pros and cons of the current model. The last chapter of the Expansion of Smart Grid Computational Tool is the wild idea of what could be accomplished in this whole process of simplified own ISGAN tool kit for member countries. Some of the ideas for the tool kit development become clearer as the process of the replication progresses. By the time of the completion of this year’s work, we hope to have a very concrete idea on how to proceed to further develop this current work in the future for the benefit of every member country in ISGAN.

SIRFN Research & Technical Topics

Related Research

A special thank you goes to German ExCo representative, Ralf Eickhoff, for his efforts in organizing a physical meeting in Berlin. Unfortunately, ISGAN was forced to cancel the physical 19^th ExCo meeting planned for March 2020 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic across Europe.

However, ISGAN succeeded in finding a quick solution and hosted a first web meeting on 24 March, where the most urgent matters were discussed. The 19^th ExCo meeting itself took place in the form of a two-day online meeting on 19-20 May 2020.

ISGAN welcomed to the meeting the new Head of Secretariat for the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), Dan Dorner, and wishes him success in his new position.

The Operating Agents of the active Annexes reported to the ISGAN Executive Committee on the progress of ongoing work and planned activities.

• Annex2: Case Books dedicated to outstanding smart grid applications
• Annex 3: Tools for the assessment of present smartness of electricity networks
• Annex 4: Organization of knowledge, key issues, insightful analysis for decision makers
• Annex 5: SIRFN . Smart grid research and testing facilities, test beds and protocols
• Annex 6: Improve understanding of smart grid technologies
• Annex 7: Governance and socio-technical issues associated with smart grids deployment
• Annex 8: ISGAN Academy – Continuous training on technical skills and updates in the field of smart grids

Regarding ISGAN’s strategy and work programme for 2020 and beyond, Iliana Cardenes, leader of the Incubator Team, and Andrew Stokes presented the results of their work. The main finding is that there is high interest for a new activity within ISGAN, focussed on joint markets and flexibility.

The main achievements of the ExCo19 meeting are:

• The Executive Committee agreed to the extension of the primary ISGAN theme of flexibility and the supporting themes of digitalization, resilience and interoperability through FY 2020.
• Several activities are planned in order to update ISGAN’s strategy and structure for the Request for Extension (RfE) process:
  • Creation of a dedicated RfE team
  • Self-assessment of the existing Annexes and in-depth discussions in workshops
  • Continuation of the Incubator team exploring the interest and necessity for having a new Annex on flexibility markets within ISGAN

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The workshops, divided in two parts, involved a large amount of interaction and engagement, gathering a total of 40 participants from ETIPS NET and ISGAN.

Presentations at the workshops provided multifaceted views, from the international work of CIGRE, the over-all System Operation and TSO perspectives, to the DSO and Local energy community perspectives. A large number of relevant projects and solutions were presented, including: OneNet, iFlex, Platone, Coordinent, FlexPlan, CINELDI, OSMOSE, Flextranstore, BD4NRG, X-FLEX, LINK Holistic perspective & Inertia monitoring for system state observability.

A conclusion from the workshops is that many of the ongoing projects are providing highly relevant knowledge to the question of How flexibility can support power grid resilience. Some of the mentioned solutions include:

• system protection schemes (e.g. islanding, congestion mitigation)
• situational awareness / system state observability
• cybersecurity highlighted by common platforms/data sharing with AI/ML solutions

Furthermore, standardisation of solutions (architecture, tools, platforms) is an important step to be taken to increase reliability & acceptance in order for large scale deployment.

We would like to thank all participants, with a special thanks to the presenters:

• Rajiv Porwal, POSOCO
• Zivorad Serafimoski, Mepso
• Emre Zengin, Gebze Organize Sanayi Bölgesi
• Steven Wong, NRCan
• Antonio Iliceto, Terna
• Ewa Mataczyńska, IPE
• Albana Ilo, Tu Wien
• Jan-Hendrik Ernst, Reactive-Technologies
• Poria Divshali, Enerim
• José Pablo Chaves Ávila, Comillas
• Ilaria Losa, RSE
• Santiago Gallego, Iberdrola
• David Martin, Iberdrola
• Gianluigi Migliavacca, RSE
• Hanne Sæle, SINTEF
• Nuno Souza e Silva, R&D Nester
• Lola Alacreu García, ETRA

ISGAN Annex 6
Professor Irina Oleinikova
irina.oleinikova@ntnu.no

ETIP SNET WG1
Emil Hillberg
emil.hillberg@ri.se

Integrating the different energy domains and thus creating “hybrid energy networks” is considered to be one of the key aspects of the future energy system. The interdisciplinary cooperation between international experts from ISGAN and DHC Annex TS3 is a unique opportunity for developing innovative solutions and successful business models towards a sustainable and flexible energy infrastructure.

• The IEA International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) supports the accelerated development and deployment of smarter, cleaner electricity grids around the world. IEA ISGAN Annex 6 “Power Transmission and Distribution Systems” focuses on the potential system-related challenges in the development of future smarter grids, including technologies, market aspects, and policies. The Annex’s main goal is to facilitate the application of advanced technologies that enable power grids to maintain and improve the security, reliability and quality of electric power supply.
• The IEA Technology Cooperation Programme on District Heating and Cooling (DHC) including Combined Heat and Power (CHP), is dedicated to helping to make DHC and CHP powerful tools for energy conservation and the reduction of environmental impacts of supplying heat. The aim of the IEA DHC Annex TS3 „hybrid energy networks“ is to promote the opportunities and to overcome the challenges for DHC networks in an integrated energy system context from a technical and strategical point of view, focussing on the coupling to electricity networks.

During the Stockholm Smart Grid week, hosted by the Swedish Energy Agency, both networks will join forces in an interactive cooperation event. Aim of the event is to create awareness on both sides on system gains from increased flexibility and resilience by coupling energy vectors. The workshop will identify concrete strengths & weaknesses, opportunities & threats of coupling DHC and electricity sectors based on the discussion of real case studies in different IEA countries and will initiate networking between key experts in the different fields. Some first results will be presented and discussed the next day during a panel session on ‘Flexibility and power system interaction and optimization leveraged by smart grid solutions’.

Under the framework of both CEM and IEA, ISGAN is an international platform for the development and exchange of knowledge and expertise on smart grids, carried by its member states. This workshop was a good opportunity to strengthen the cooperation between international ISGAN members and speakers and the ENTSO-E and E.DSO participants and moderators. The event offered also a great opportunity to disseminate the results of the ISGAN work to the Belgian smart grid community, get their feed-back on the results and to learn from their experiences.

Maarten Noeninckx, FPS Economy Belgium / ISGAN

Joni Rossi, RISE Sweden / ISGAN Annex 6

The workshop looked from various angels at recent developments and innovations which increase coordination and control of interconnected systems and markets on the global scale. The topical presentations and lively discussions contributed largely to ISGAN’s main objectives, namely to exchange knowledge and expertise and foster international cooperation in the field of smart grids amongst international organizations, national government, regulators, utilities, manufacturers and research institutes, all of which were well presented at the workshop.

Different representatives from European and international networks such as IEA, IRENA, EC DG Energy and Cigre opened the discussion by linking European policies (i.e. Clean Energy Package) to worldwide sustainability goals such as electricity access and clean air, broadening flexibility needs to all sectors of the energy system and stressing the importance of robust international cooperation and a stable CO2 price. A poll in the audience confirmed that one of the major challenges is the need for power sector investments in order to meet long-term goals and to reach high levels of electrification in buildings, transport and industry.

Yasmine Arsalane, IEA

Elaine O’Connell, European Commission

Emanuele Taibi, IRENA

Annex 6, ISGAN’s working group on ‘Power Transmission and Distribution Systems’, focuses on the application of advanced technologies needed for power grids to contribute in the best way to the attainment of clean energy and climate goals. During the interactive workshop, the conclusions of some recent ISGAN activities on power system flexibility, TSO-DSO interaction and a single marketplace for flexibility were disseminated and discussed. Several speakers gave valuable input for the kickoff of a new Annex 6 activity on ‘global versus local power systems’. In an interactive group discussion we tried to critically assess whether different trends (global versus local), that both aim at enable very high penetration of renewable energy sources, are totally independent or whether there are synergies or conflicts of interest between the two.

Antony Zegers, AIT Austria / ISGAN Annex 6

Irina Oleinikova, NTNU Norway / ISGAN Annex 6

The day was concluded by a visit to the control room of the regional security center CORESO, which was also the host of the day. It showed how the increased inter-TSO operational coordination was put in practice.

Power systems around the world are faced with a wide range of challenges in order to realize the objective to integrate an increased amount of renewable energy sources in the modern electricity grids. The consequences affect the daily operation and longterm planning of transmission and distribution systems, and the network owners and operator’s ability to ensure continuous, reliable and high quality of supply to the customers. The needs of each actor within the electrical supply chain provide drivers for revision of current practices and promotes future adaptions of functional components and systems, economic and regulatory areas.
This document provides insights in the work of ISGAN Annex 6, in form of key messages consolidated from the views of the focus areas

• Technology Trends and Deployment
• Expansion Planning and Market Analysis
• System Operation and Security
• Transmission and Distribution System Interaction

The case book Spotlight on Smart and Strong Power T&D Infrastructure spotlights a number of projects sharing best practices to meet challenges for the power systems to become stronger and smarter.

Many different approaches are possible to meet these challenges and the regulators have a key role in supporting the development towards clean sustainable solutions.
Different countries have different challenges, will use different solutions to those challenges, and have reached different maturity in the implementation of those solutions. Smart grid solutions are also found across the entire electrical system, from the high voltage transmission grid, through the distribution grid and finally on consumer level. It is therefore no generic solution or size that fits all for the solution towards the smart and strong grid. At the same time there are generic solutions and findings from experiences that can be adapted by other countries to make local implementation faster and more efficient.

Highlights of 2020 include:

• Two very fruitful online Ex.Co. meetings, where the following topics were in the main focus:

1) Request for Extension and Strategy process(a strategy process for the preparation of the next phase of ISGAN).
2) Cooperation with other organizations, TCPs, and initiatives

• Based on the successful Knowledge Transfer Project (KTP) approach developed within ISGAN since 2016, a new process design was developed for the Regulatory Sandbox 2.0 Project
• Under the lead of the UK, a new Annex 9 on Flexibility Markets Development and Implementation was approved and officially started on January 26th, 2021.
• The CEM Horizontal Accelerator for “Power System Integration of Electric Vehicle (EV) Infra-structure” is an innovative mechanism strengthening the collaboration and capitalizing on the synergies between four CEM workstreams: the International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN), 21st Century Power Partnership (21CPP), the Electric Vehicle Initiative (EVI) & the Power System Flexibility (PSF) Campaign.
• ISGAN and the Power System Flexibility Campaign (PSF) organized a joint workshop “A holistic approach to low emission energy systems through the sector integration” This event took place as an official pre-event of the CEM11/MI-5 Ministerial meeting on Wednesday 16 September 2020.
• The Smart Grid Evaluation Toolkit
• In collaboration with Annex 2 and 7, Annex 4 supported the publication of policy messages on Innovative Regulatory Approaches with Focus on Experimental Sandboxes to Enable Smart Grid Deployment.
• Public SIRFN Webinar on “Testing Methods and Certification Protocols of IEA-ISGAN:SIRFN”,  October 15th, 2020
• SIRFN Fact Sheet  “ISGAN Annex 5 General Brochure”
• Joint SIRFN and related SIRFN member publications
• Micro grids vs Mega grids
• Lessons learned from international projects on TSO-DSO interaction
• inter-Annex Regulatory Sandboxes 2.0 project
• The ISGAN Academy webinars
• The ISGAN Award of Excellence
• Capturing Flexibility in Local Energy Systems Workshop

For the full activity description feel free to download the latest issue of our Activity Report below.

ISGAN’s strategy and work programme for 2020 and beyond were a centerpiece of discussions, in addition the proposal of a new Annex. Annex 9 will focus on Flexibility Markets, their development and implementation, and will be headed by Operating Agent Iliana Cardenes, of the United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

ISGAN is also proud to announce Brazil as its newest Contracting Party, and would like to thank Cyro Vicente Boccuzzi, President of the Latin American Smart Grid Forum for his support throughout this process.

Moreover, Israel is highly interested in joining our ranks and was represented by Yael Harman, Head of Technology and Renewable Energy of the Israeli Ministry of Energy, who took part as an observer.

To further ISGAN’s international cooperation, representatives from other TCPs were invited to the meeting: Stefan Nowak, Chair of the IEA Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (PVPS) and Paul Lucchese, Chair of the IEA Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Program (HTCP),  who shared insights into the work of their TPCs and possible areas of cooperation with ISGAN. Furthermore, the meeting was complemented by presentations from the IEA and CEM Secretariat.

On Day 3 of the ExCo meeting, ISGAN Annex 6: Power Transmission & Distribution Systems hosted a side event showcasing the recent work done within the Annex. More details here.

Another side event was organized by the ISGAN KTP Team and focused on experiences from various projects and work within ISGAN’s Annexes. The challenge addressed in this workshop were the barriers for knowledge flow and engagement between stakeholders at national level with the international level, and vice versa. More details here.

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As a participant in the full workshop, you will have the opportunity to learn from the latest findings on activities related to demonstrations taking place internationally. Through discussions and collaborative sessions, you will also have the change to contribute to a whitepaper highlighting concepts presented and encouraging future study implementation to provide support for effective policy development.

This workshop will be hosted in the following segments:

1. December 2020: Pre-recorded presentations are available on the ISGAN YouTube Channel for you to view online before attending the next workshop segments
2. January 13, 2021 from 14:00 – 16:30 CET / 8:00 – 10:30 EST / 18:30 – 21:00 IST: Join a live 2-hour online discussion amongst speakers and participants for a) Q&A session with the speaker and b) open group discussion for drafting the outline of a whitepaper that highlights the potential and encourages future study and implementation.
3. 2021/2022: Join an in-person (as circumstances allow) meeting with international ISGAN and annex 6 members as well as Canadian experts from the smart grids community, attached to another event in Canada will focus on finalizing and launching the whitepaper.

The online workshop is free of charge but we strongly encourage interested participants to register to receive reminders and updates as this workshop and its related deliverables progress.

List of Presentations:

Introductions

• Introduction to ISGAN Annex 6: Transmission and Distribution Systems – Joni Rossi, RISE / ISGAN Annex 6 Operating Agent (Sweden)

Theme A: Potential of Flexibility Resources

• Flexibility Potential in Local Energy Systems – Anjali Wadhera, Natural Resources Canada (Canada)

• Local Power Balancing for Advancing Power System Flexibility – Narayana Prasad Padhy, India Institute of Technology Roorkee (India)

Theme B: Bringing Flexibility Together

• IESO York Region Non Wires Alternatives Demonstration Project – Pat Lo,  Independent Electricity System Operator of Ontario (Canada)

• Transactive Electric Distribution System – Bala Venkatesh, Ryerson University (Canada)

• “Enabling flexibilities for future power systems: Synergies from EU and Canadian collaborative activities” by Magnus Andersson – IMCG Sweden, Anh Tuan Le – Chalmers University of Technology and Kankar Bhattacharya – University of Waterloo.

• Green Button and London Hydro Pilots – Syed Mir, London Hydro (Canada)

Theme C: Market Policies and Planning Approaches

• The Role of DSOs in a Decentralised Future – Randolf Brazier, Energy Networks Association (United Kingdom)

• Local Market Designs for Maximizing Social Benefits (Survey Results) – Orlando Valarezo, Universidad Pontificia Comillas (Spain)

• Why getting flexibility from distribution grids? Possible solutions and regulatory issues – Gianluigi Migliavacca, Ricerca sul Sistema Energetico (Italy)

Further information about the event will be distributed to the registered persons shortly before the event. For all enquiries regarding the event, please contact steven.wong[at]canada.ca or joni.rossi[at]ri.se.

However, rather than being able to provide ready-made answers about the institutional and social dimensions of smart grids, much more can be said about what-we-don’t-know. We identified two main reasons why we do not know enough about smart grid transition.

1. The structural challenge is that energy research is mainly focusing on technologies for the physical grid with little knowledge on institutional change and the social dimension of energy transition.
   In an article in Nature, B.K. Sovacool (Vol 511, 2014) examined the scope of more than 4400 articles in leading energy technology and energy policy journals over 15 years. He identified four trends which he evaluates as worrisome if not tackled by public and private organizations and the scientific community:
   a. An underevaluation of influence of social dimensions on energy use,
   b. A bias towards science, engineering and economics over other social sciences and humanities,
   c. A lack of interdisciplinary collaboration and
   d. The underrepresentation of female authors or those of minority groups
   This corresponds to the challenges identified in developing a strategic research agenda for Smart Grids Transitions of Annex 7. The European Commission in its Horizon 2020 research and innovation program tries to address this issue by encouraging SSH research to be taken up in energy research projects. An interim evaluation2 shows the low level of SSH research with the main part going to economic research. Other disciplines are hardly visible and there is a significant geographical divide between countries in taking up the possibility to integrate SSH research.
   There is the need to insert the social and environmental dimensions in the projects of smart grid deployment as well as in the decision making processes needed to select the most appropriate solutions. It is not enough that projects be perfect from the technical and economics point of view, they should be based on a sound social analysis and include specific actions to take into consideration the concerns, needs, and expectations of citizens and consumers.
2. Although the political will to further increase the public energy-R&D investment in the CEM countries substantially exists, statistical evidence shows a stagnation of energy related social-science-humanities R&D investment at a very low level.
   R&D statistics (OECD/IEA, EU – Horizon 2020) indicate that increases in public R&D spending over the last years did not lead to a more balanced resource-attribution for all research disciplines. Particularly, research resources for social sciences and humanities (SSH) have not yet received the attention it would require to learn more about embedding technological development in the economic and societal environment (e.g. on energy use, or on how future markets will look like).3
   Although the obstacles of data accuracy exacerbate the analysis, still two statements can be made:
   a. The share of R&D from SSH in the area of energy4 in OECD countries has been fluctuating significantly over the last years. When adding up all reported country figures between 0.1% and 9% during the period of 1974 and 20155.
   b. If at all, SSH-research capacities and funding in absolute terms is growing with much less speed than in engineering and natural sciences.
   Given the high uncertainties, how global energy transition should take place and the lack of orientation where technological development should lead to, SSH research will be needed even more urgently than in times of relative stability of the energy system.
   The intention of Mission Innovation, to double public clean-energy R&D investment over five years, is an encouraging signal for R&D actors and will likely lead to structural changes in the research and innovation-eco-system. However it remains to be seen, if this could also lead to a substantial rise in the knowledge about the social dimension of smart grids, without a political will to provide significant resources for SSH research as well as the appropriate R&D instruments.
   The following conclusion and recommendations can be drawn from this analysis:

• Significantly more inter- and transdisciplinary research activities in social sciences and humanities are needed.
• More attention has to be laid on generating know-how on social dimensions of technological and institutional transformation of energy systems and markets.
• Financial resources for SSH research need to be raised at least as much as for technological development and the respective R&D capacities and infrastructures need to be built up sustainably. Collaboration and strategic research agendas should be coordinated amongst CEM-countries.
• There is an urgent need for more accurate statistical data on SSH in energy research.

During the ExCo meeting, side events of various Annexes took place, which did not only attract great attention within ISGAN but also from external experts.

At this 18^th meeting of the Executive Committee of ISGAN, Chairwoman Karin Widegren stepped down from her position and Luciano Martini, former Vice-Chair, was elected as her successor.

The ISGAN community thanked Karin for her tremendous efforts and acknowledged her sage counsel and dedicated leadership, tireless commitment inspiration to colleagues and young professionals, and overall cheer in fulfilling her duties. The Executive Committee presented the ISGAN Achievement Award to her.

The 18^th ExCo meeting also focused on strategy issues that ranged from re-organising the Annex structure, boosting ISGAN’s activities in digitalisation and interoperability as well as stepping-up ISGAN’s task-sharing efforts.

• Reorganisation of Annexes
  • A proposal for the adaptation and reorganization of the Annex structure in ISGAN was developed.
  • ISGAN Annexes will be asked to perform a self-assessment until the next ExCo meeting (taking place in March, 2020 in Berlin, Germany)
• Establishment of the Incubator Team
  • Focus on new developments concerning digitalization and interoperability
  • Preparation of a knowledge-base for decision-making: Should new topics be included in the work of ISGAN? And if so, how?
• Increased task-sharing efforts
  • Definition of a path forward to deepen and widen participation in ISGAN’s activities, in order to make its output more relevant to policy makers.
  • Issues concerning the goal of becoming an organization based on task-sharing; how to re-engage inactive members in Annex work; and possible further steps were discussed.
  • Continuous self-assessment of Annexes should also contribute to address these issues.
• Market definitions: A topic-oriented session focused on the clarification of market definitions in relation to ISGAN engagement. The aim of the session was to review and clarify the differences of the multi-layered definitions for the term “market” in the context of grid modernization, digitalization, and smart grids.

The next meeting of the Executive Committee of ISGAN will take place in March in Berlin, Germany. The mentioned topics will be continued during the next meeting.