Enabling Platform for Commercial Services for the Aggregate management of resources in the electric system
Forward to technology and economics
The system of production, transmission, distribution and consumption of electricity (Electric System) has been for several years now in a phase of profound transformation from a predominantly hierarchical model towards a distributed model.
The general impulse for sustainable development and the attention to reduce all forms of pollution summarized in the "20-20-20" objective that Europe has set itself has led to the increasingly widespread use of renewable energy sources not programmable (FRNP) and the remarkable development of 'distributed generation'. This evolution has created instability in the transport and distribution network due precisely to the unpredictability and programmability of these sources. Furthermore, these are often located on the periphery of the network, altering the logic of energy flow from the center towards the periphery for which the networks have been designed.
This phenomenon is also destined to increase to ensure the environmental and economic sustainability of the production and use of electricity to which renewable energies make a substantial contribution, as well as for the increased use of energy given for example by heat pumps, electric cars etc. ...;
To manage this phenomenon, guaranteeing greater flexibility and improvement in the management of the electricity grid, "Smart Grids" have progressively established themselves, which exploit IT and telecommunications technologies and target distributed intelligence. The widening of the audience of subjects involved in various capacities in the management and balancing work to bring the demand and energy production curves closer is one of the characterizing elements of Smart Grids.
The aim is to reduce response times, increase flexibility, be able to manage various problems locally and ultimately reduce associated costs.
The PASCAL platform is an innovative tool to face in a new way a market that is opening up in the Italian context. The progressive and inevitable opening of the Electricity System to the participation of new subjects (Aggregators) who can activate the contribution of distributed generation and demand to the stability and programmability of the system is in fact a new aspect not only in Italy, but in most European countries. PASCAL enters this market with the proposal of an innovative approach both in the business model (DEMAND RESPONSE AS A SERVICE) and in the technological instrumentation (end-to-end closed cycle platform) which capitalizes on the experiences of the countries that first opened the market to the participation of new subjects (eg USA, UK). In particular, the PASCAL approach already targets a scenario in which the involvement of demand and distributed generation on a relatively large scale is envisaged, involving buildings, small industrial and commercial users and, to tend, the residential users themselves. To obtain this result, PASCAL adopts innovative technologies for data analysis, prediction of the behavior of the units involved, interaction with the market for dispatching services that exploit the most recent developments in the "big data" world.
The PASCAL platform therefore represents a tool not yet present in the Italian and international market, which is innovative in several aspects:
-Integrated technical and economic approach: the models developed within the project will take into account consumption and production data in relation to users' economic data (opening hours, type of contract, type of activity, etc.). So in addition to the forecast of production and consumption, for example the platform will be able to provide information about the actual propensity for posting by users, useful for the economic plan of the aggreggatore.
-Adaptive approach: the developed models will be able to automatically adapt to the variations of the user's technical and economic profile.
- Purely software approach: a platform that is easy to update, in step with both Italian and international regulations (therefore also suitable for the international market) and open to new services (for example "power exchange" among users of the aggregator ").
-End-to-end closed-loop solution: the entire service realization cycle is considered automatically. There is the measurement part, the scalable and modular measurement and actuation device, the management part of the interaction with the operator and with the market and the actuation chain that can even perform BMS functions.
The project develops innovative technologies and tools for a new figure in the electricity market - the aggregator - which fits fully into the Smart Grid paradigm. This role requires new methods to tightly combine technical and economic aspects which are crucial to obtaining the expected benefits. The project will therefore study and develop an innovative approach that addresses these issues in a strictly combined way and is directly focused on the different application scenarios (eg: Virtual Power Plant, Demand Response) in different contexts(Distributed generation, industrial users, buildings, etc.) .).
"Micro-dispatching" policies will be developed which will allow innovative methods in the contractual and operational management of users and producers included in the aggregate, overcoming the rigidity of current contractual and operational relationships.
The platform created is an innovative product for which there is no consolidated offer on the Italian market, and which can also play a role in foreign markets.
Compared to similar platforms developed on the basis of technical solutions directly derived from the control systems currently used (for example "instant reduction systems" - UPDC) the project is innovative as it will adopt IoT and Cloud technologies designed for intelligent system management distributed - from a Smartgrid perspective - rather than for simple automation.
It is proposed to build and test in a technological platform to meet the Aggregator's needs from both technological and economic points of view.
An update on each activity carried out shortly ...
Funded by the PO FESR 2014/2020 measures 1.1.5 of the Sicily Region.
Here are the main topics covered:
-Participants presentation
-Project status and fulfilments
-Work plan
-Realization objectives
-Action list
The results obtained are those relating to the fact of having a working platform that allows the dispatching of the resources of the individual producers included within the aggregate following special requests relating to a change in power and that may be, by their nature, both uphill and downhill requests. In particular, by setting appropriate parameters associated with the specific user (or producer) it is possible to define the behaviour of the aggregate in order to deal with the request received in mod by exegirla in the most efficient way possible.
In addition, this platform analyzes the data received from individual resources in order to be able to best execute (and at the lowest cost) the requests that are accepted by the specific aggregate.
As stated before, this approach is particularly effective because the aggregation of users to a single resource makes it possible to overcome the rigidity typical of contractual relationships that exist at present.
December 2019 - June 2022
Costs: 2.431.448,31 €
See the complete list of implementation objectives and lines of activity
Scientific coordinator and head
University of Catania - DIEEI
Project manager for the COMETA Consortium
University of Catania - DIEEI
Responsible for Research and Development activities
SFERA S.r.l.
ICT skills related to the Cloud and IoT
University of Catania - DIEEI
Aggregate management for "demand response" management
University of Catania - DIEEI
Aggregate management for "demand response" management
Cometa - Catania
Project manager for Col Giovanni Paolo S.P.A.
Belpasso - Catania
... and many other collaborators and colleagues who, in various capacities, contribute to the success of the project!
The consortium is made up of:
-algoWatt S.P.A. with headquarters in Catania Via Leucatia 9, on the island of Sicily, where all the planned activities are carried out. In Italy there are several offices among which we remember the one in Milan - ITALY.
-COL GIOVANNI PAOLO S.P.A. is structured on two different research units, one in Moncalieri (TO), where it has its registered office and the second office in Belpasso (CT) in SP 14 n.93-95, Piano Tavola where the project activities will be carried out-ITALY .
-COMETA - Multi-Entity Consortium for the Promotion and Adoption of Advanced Computing Technologies and will take place in Via Santa Sofia 64 c / o INFN Department of Physics Astronomy Univ.CT, Catania - ITALY. The "Multi-Entity Consortium for the Promotion and Adoption of Advanced Computing Technologies" (COMETA) (www.consorzio-cometa.it) was founded in 2005 by:
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica www.inaf.it
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare www.infn.it
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia www.ingv.it
Università di Catania www.unict.it
Università di Messina www.unime.it
Università di Palermo www.unipa.it
Consorzio S.C.I.R.E. www.consorzioscire.it
-SFERA S.r.l. is an innovative startup created with the aim of developing highly reliable services for the management of distributed, remote-controlled and remotely programmable network infrastructures. For SFERA S.r.l the activities will take place at its registered office in Tremestieri Etneo (CT) in Via Novaluce 38 - ITALY.
+39 010 6026 1
It coordinates throughout the period to use all the efforts made to validate the communication and planning of industrial development, develops the scientific and technical dissemination actions also in order to create a network of contacts to favor the industrial development of the results.
+39 095 7382337
Personal website www.dieei.unict.it
Scientific coordinator and head
Associate Professor of Electrical Systems for Energy at DIEEI
University of Catania
salvatore.cavalieri@dieei.unict.it
+39 095 7382362
Full Professor of Information Processing Systems
University of Catania
