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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