ISGAN Virtual Learning and the ISGAN Lighthouse Project on Smart Distribution Grids invite you to a webinar where we will introduce a new framework for understanding the dynamics of long-term planning and implementation of smart distribution grids. This framework offers insights to help navigate the landscape of increasing complexity and uncertainty associated with distribution grid modernization globally.

We will present the framework, which lays out five essential phases of long-term planning and three enabling framework conditions, offering a structured understanding of how different actor groups are involved in these processes. The webinar will also highlight key messages from the ISGAN Policy Brief on this theme, which was recently launched in conjunction with the Clean Energy Ministerial meeting (CEM15) in Brazil.

The speakers

	Helena Lindquist Project Manager, ISGAN Lighthouse Project on Smart Distribution Grids
	Susanne Ackeby ISGAN Working Group 6, Power T&D Systems, Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE)
	Klaus Kubeczko ISGAN Working Group 7, Smart Grids Transitions, Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT)

Intended audience

The webinar is designed for professionals involved in strategic decision-making and risk management across various sectors.

The expected audience includes:
Business Leaders and Executives: Individuals responsible for setting organizational direction and strategy.
Project Managers: Professionals overseeing projects that require adaptability to changing conditions.
Risk Management Specialists: Experts focused on identifying and mitigating potential risks.
Financial Analysts and Planners: Individuals managing financial forecasting and budgeting under uncertain scenarios.
Policy Makers and Regulators: Authorities crafting policies that must account for future uncertainties.

Key messages

This webinar aims to equip participants with practical tools and insights to enhance their planning capabilities, ensuring resilience and agility in the face of unpredictable challenges.

Join us for a webinar titled “Flexible Operation of Energy Communities under Uncertainty in Energy Markets,” featuring insights from Llorenç Burgas Nadal (Universitat de Girona) and Albert Solà Vilalta (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), based on their work within the OptiREC project, which focuses on developing solutions for Energy Communities in the Spanish context.

This session will explore innovative methodologies for flexibility estimation, asset forecasting, and optimization to enhance the participation of energy communities. Llorenç Burgas will demonstrate how these techniques can be implemented on platforms like Home Assistant to engage domestic users. Albert Solà will present multi-stage stochastic programming models designed to address challenges posed by uncertain renewable generation and fluctuating electricity prices, optimizing energy communities’ participation in electricity markets.

The speakers

	Albert Solà Vilalta Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
	Llorenç Burgas Nadal Universitat de Girona

Intended audience

Researchers, policy makers, junior engineers and students, senior engineers.

Key messages

Flexibility estimation

Multi-Market Market Participation under Price and Renewable Uncertainty.

Case Studies to Analyse Regulatory Frameworks for Energy Communities in Europe.

We will start with the patented, world-first, hybrid fluidised bed (HFB) gasification system, which converts solid biomass into a clean, high-energy gas. This gas is combusted in the gas turbine at high temperatures, resulting in highly efficient power generation that sets new industry standards. Efficiency is further enhanced through the use of steam generated from exhaust gases and waste heat from the gasifier. This steam is injected into the gas turbine, significantly boosting power output. The final step of the process focuses on smart heat recovery. All steam is condensed, enabling the recycling of water. The low-temperature heat produced at this stage is efficiently utilised for district heating, CO₂ capture, and biomass drying, contributing to the system’s overall sustainability. The Bio-FlexGen’s integrated approach does more than just generate power. It represents a transformative advancement in energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, making a positive impact beyond traditional power generation. Our engineers will explore these innovations in depth, providing insightful knowledge for PHD students, engineers, and investors in the bioenergy field.

Further reading: https://bioflexgen.eu/

Watch past webinars here: ISGAN Virtual Learning

Visit ISGAN: https://www.iea-isgan.org/

The speakers

	Michael Bartlett CTO and Founding Partner Phoenix BioPower
	Jens Pålsson Senior Plant Engineer Phoenix BioPower
	Chunguang Zhou Chief engineer, Head of Gasification Phoenix BioPower
	Felix Guethe Chief engineer Combustion Phoenix BioPower

Intended audience

Senior engineers and potential investors

Key messages

Main achievements:

• Plant
  • On-demand power: Flexible, local, renewable
  • Biomass wastes as feedstock (i.e., forest, agriculture, and demolition)
  • Carbon Dioxide Removal
  • 50-80% more electricity from biomass
  • 3 x more local power from district heating (CHP)
• Gasification
• • The world’s first Hybrid Fluidised Bed (HFB) gasification system
  • Cost-effective and efficient at high pressure
  • Flexibility: Low-cost feedstocks, operates with oxygen gas or air for hydrogen or electricity production, broad turndown for 0-100% electricity output on biomass
  • Development to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4
• Combustion
  • Unique, patented Phoenix Advanced Combustion System (PACS)
  • Low nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, high stability and broad operating window with high steam levels
  • Fuel flexibility: hydrogen/syngas/methane/mixtures
  • Development to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4

Further watching and reading

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7234439590487490561/

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7231917952462123008/

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7229381289512968193/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/76118039/admin/page-posts/published/

https://bioflexgen.eu/investors/

https://bioflexgen.eu/solutions/

https://phoenixbiopower.com/

ISGAN Virtual Learning and OptiREC project invite you to an insightful webinar on the approaches to integrate Energy Communities into the Spanish electricity system.

The EU policy recognizes energy communities as pivotal for achieving energy transition goals. However, integrating this new actor into the existing electricity system landscape remains an open topic, especially as large-scale energy community development reaches a critical mass impacting system and market operations.

The OptiREC project investigates the technical and regulatory challenges posed by the large-scale development and integration of energy communities within the Spanish electricity system. Join us for a webinar where we’ll discuss the OptiREC project’s achievements, focusing on the development of optimal multi-layer coordination among community members, Distribution System Operators (DSOs), and Transmission System Operators (TSOs).

Moreover, OptiREC presents two optimization models designed to simulate the operations of an Energy Community (EC), focusing on energy trading among peers and evaluating the EC’s potential to offer flexibility as a service to the distribution network operator (DSO). Employing the second-order cone programming representation, the mathematical formulations include the distribution network limitations and consider distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar panels, energy storage systems, electric vehicles, and heat pumps. The models were executed over a year with one-hour time steps using the IEEE European Low Voltage test feeder, adapted to a single-phase version, for testing the formulations. Thus, the first model reflects exclusive peer-to-peer (P2P) operations, while the second model isolates flexibility considerations. This approach enables a comprehensive examination of how introducing a flexibility market influences the trading patterns within the community. Through statistical analysis of the annual data generated by the optimization models, the study identifies hours with a higher likelihood for the EC to offer flexibility services and estimates the potential quantity of such services.

These insights provide valuable characterizations of the EC concerning demand, energy trading, and flexibility provision. As a result, the DSO could enhance daily operational planning conditions based on a better understanding of the EC’s dynamics and capabilities.

The speakers:

	Seyedamir Mansouri Universidad Pontificia Comillas IIT Institute for Research in Technology
	Albert Farriol Salas IREC Fundació Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya

Intended audience

Researchers and academics interested in energy transition, community energy, and grid integration.
Technology providers and solution developers offering products and services for energy community integration and grid optimization.
Representatives from energy communities, including community organizers, leaders, and members.
Professionals and experts in the energy sector, including policymakers, regulators, and energy industry stakeholders.
Utility companies, DSOs, and TSOs seeking insights into integrating energy communities into the electricity system.

Key messages

• Cloud computing platforms to integrate energy communities into existing energy markets.
• Coordinated frameworks to extract flexibility from community members.
• P2P power sharing among community members to enhance economic, technical, and efficiency indices.

ISGAN Virtual Learning invites you to an informative webinar focused on the implementation and benefits of hybrid power systems in insular environments. This session will feature insights from the SINNOGENES EU project’s pilot on the island of Ikaria, Greece. We will delve into technology integration, challenges, and potential grid enhancements.

Additionally, we will highlight the significance of adopting AI technology and simulation to facilitate the management of transport fleets and the synergy with the energy networks, in a hydrogen-oriented environment located in Geneva, Switzerland.
Furthermore, the webinar will explore prospective modelling of the European energy system to elucidate the role of specific technologies in meeting future energy needs. We will present the Artelys Crystal Super Grid modelling tool, showcasing its effectiveness in analyzing the role of storage technologies in providing flexibility to the European energy system, as part of the SINNOGENES project.

The speakers:

	Nikos Andriopoulos, Researcher, Independent Power Transmission Operator
	Quentin Matthewson, Technical project manager, Transports Publics Genevois
	Georgios Spanos, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas
	Grégoire Thillaye du Boullay, Project Manager, Artelys France

Intended audience

Policy makers, utility managers, TSOs, DSOs, renewable energy professionals, PTOs, PTAs engineers involved in power system planning and operation and in software development, and academic researchers in energy studies, public transport, and AI.

Key messages

• Demonstration of the integration of wind and pumped hydro storage in an insular grid to enhance energy .resilience and sustainability.
• Highlighting the technical and economic benefits of hybrid power systems in reducing reliance on conventional energy sources.
• Presentation of Ikaria as a model for renewable energy integration in island settings.
• Emphasis to AI technology for energy consumption optimization and fuel cell lifetime increase
• Highlighting the importance of RES penetration increase for mobility
• Presentation of on demand service for public transportation in Geneva using hydrogen vehicles
• Using Artelys Crystal Super Grid to model a multi-energy transition pathway for the European energy system will make it possible to represent the gradual uptake of innovative storage and flexibility technologies and to assess the impact of their integration.
• The role and the impact of these technologies can be assessed using various indicators, in particular by evaluating their contribution to flexibility needs.

Key highlights included:
– The significance of upcoming global energy gatherings like the energy ministerial in Brazil, MI, and COP29 in Bankoo, alongside a pressing grid infrastructure issue highlighted by recent media attention, especially in the US.
– Emphasizing ISGAN’s role in capitalizing on current momentum to achieve ambitious goals, focusing on renewables and energy efficiency while advancing grid infrastructure.

The meeting adopted a “tour de table” format, with each country sharing its developments, facilitating comparisons. Presentations covered diverse national strategies:

– European Commission: Focused on accelerating grid projects and enhancing regulatory incentives.
– Sweden: Discussed ongoing discussions on nuclear, hydrogen, and energy communities.
– Austria: Emphasized energy community integration and climate-focused strategies.
– The Netherlands: Addressed grid congestion challenges and the need for flexibility market development.
– Denmark: Highlighted renewable energy dominance, EV charging innovations, and smart grid legislation.
– Germany: Outlined plans for a renewables-centric future and hydrogen infrastructure.
– Belgium: Stressed renewable energy expansion, grid security, and collaborative initiatives.
– Korea: Presented a smart grid implementation plan with a focus on enhancing power supply flexibility.
– South Africa: Discussed liberalization efforts, renewable energy expansion, and grid challenges.
– Australia: Examined energy sector decarbonization challenges and renewable energy penetration.
– USA: Detailed ambitious emissions reduction goals, legislative initiatives, and grid resilience efforts.

Key themes and challenges emerged:
– Concerns over grid capacity lagging behind renewable deployment.
– Growing interest in smart grid solutions and interconnections.
– The need for policymakers to grasp technical challenges and bridge the gap between policy and implementation.
– Suggestions for simplified communication methods and leveraging international platforms for dissemination.

Future considerations included evaluating progress towards goals, outreach to non-participating countries, and synthesizing key insights for broader dissemination.
   

Utilizing untapped Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) potential from customers in the distribution grid necessitates TSO-DSO-Customer coordination. Customers, who consume, store, or generate electricity, have shown attractive potential for ancillary services to power systems, but they still face challenges managing and marketing their flexibility in the energy market. Aggregators can facilitate these flexibilities as an intermediary by providing services to different power systems participants. This poses new challenges for monitoring, controlling, and coordinating customers’ and other market player’s needs.

This webinar aims to disseminate knowledge about aggregators in power systems, address the challenges encountered, both technical and non-technical, and share experiences from pilot projects. Participants will gain insights to apply and expand the impact of aggregator roles in the context of their own countries.

Speakers

	Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Sebastian Lehnhoff OFFIS
	Marcel Otte OFFIS
	Dr.-Ing. Jirapa Kamsamrong OFFIS
	Annike Abromeit EEBUS
	Dr. Christian Kunze Smart Innovation Norway
Moderates:
	Dr. José Pablo Chaves Ávila Comillas Pontifical University

Intended audience

Policymakers, TSOs, DSOs, NGOs, aggregators, governmental agencies, researchers, interested participants, students, etc.

Key messages

A regulatory framework with a clear definition of the aggregator role should be established in each country to enhance competitiveness, transparency, and societal welfare. Coordination approaches have to be established among aggregators, customers and grid operator with the focus on harmonised and interoperable solutions. Moreover, innovative approaches can be tested in demonstration and R&D projects with temporary regulatory changes and experiments (e.g. regulatory sandboxes), which can help to address the technical and non-technical challenges and support needed for the real deployment.

Modern digital telecommunication infrastructures will soon allow to be adjusted to the energy industry needs, providing the opportunity to implement edge computing trough cloud native applications.

To simplify the integration of the 5G digital telco infrastructures’ functionalities, increasing reliability and flexibility and reducing the latency, the Smart5Grid project propose the concept of Network Applications, together with a platform to automatically validate and verify those applications, fostering the creation of a new ecosystem of device virtualization experts.

Further reading: https://smart5grid.eu/dissemination-activities/brochures/

Speaker

Daniele Porcu (Enel Grids)

Intended audience

System Operators’ O&M experts, Technology experts and researchers, System integrators, Junior engineers and students, SMEs and technologic start-ups, device manufacturers for power plants automation (production, transmission, distribution)

Key messages

• 5G offers the opportunity to interact with the Core Network to provide services
• The complexity of such integration is a barrier, but Smart5Grid project proposes an innovative approach
• We are able to provide a novel concept of Network Application to simplify the 5G complexity
• Our set of tools can facilitate the access to this technology, fostering the creation of a new market segment for digital services: they are open for everyone who wants to learn more!

Navigating Australia’s Grid Transformation: A Postcard from the Future

Australia’s GW-scale electric power systems are experiencing some of the world’s fastest transformations and provide something of a ‘postcard from the future’ for many jurisdictions. These transformational forces are impacting all vertical layers of the legacy system, including bulk power, transmission, distribution and energy retail.  Australian energy customers are also actively influencing the nature of the transformation to a degree that is without precedent in the history of electric grids.

In the context of accelerating withdrawal of dispatchable synchronous generation, Australia’s transformation is being supercharged by massive deployment of utility-scale Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) and world-leading levels of Distributed Energy Resources (DER).  As the proportion of VRE and DER continues to grow, a step-change uplift in system capabilities becomes essential to ready them for reliable and cost-efficient operation in deeply decarbonized future.

Leveraging Global Insight for Navigation

Digitalisation, interoperability, transport electrification, enhanced asset utilisation and Distribution System Operator (DSO) models, for example, all have much promise in such an environment.  However, it is often poorly understood that all such solutions, and many others, cannot achieve their full potential without the underpinning structural relationships or ‘architecture’ of the grid being made future ready.

The presentation will highlight how the navigation of Australia’s transformation is increasingly informed by an integrated set of tools that support holistic grid transformation, many of which have benefited from seminal global research and development, especially in Europe and North America.

Speaker

Mark Paterson (Energy Catalyst) Mark Paterson is Energy Catalyst’s Principal and Lead Systems Architect. With over two decades in the energy sector, Mark works at the intersection of strategic futures and scalable, ‘least regrets’ action. At CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, he led several major energy system transformation projects as Chair of the CSIRO Future Grid Forum and Program Director of the CSIRO/ENA Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap. At energy utilities Horizon Power and Energex, he led the innovative development and scale deployment of several technology innovation firsts. Over much of the last decade, Mark has been privileged to develop leading expertise in Systems Architecture-based disciplines which are now increasingly recognised as critical for enabling the deep decarbonization of legacy power systems. He is formally trained in both the Systems Architecture and Grid Architecture methodologies developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the US Department of Energy’s Grid Modernisation Laboratory Consortia (GMLC) respectively. Focused on future-informed action, this expertise is further complemented by Strategic Foresight and Technology Roadmapping methodologies developed by EDHEC in Europe and Cambridge University in the UK.

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