Facilitating participation, unleashing energy flexibility’s potential
What once seemed like an infinite reserve of fossil fuels enabled a centralised electricity supply that was generally able to meet fluctuating demand. Today’s green energy transition is powered by an increasing contribution of renewable energy sources (RES) and small-scale distributed energy resources localised to homes and buildings. Decentralised generation, storage and usage along with intermittent RES create fluctuating energy flows. Digitalisation will support smart grids and flexibility markets, enabling stakeholders to respond to market signals – matching supply and demand sustainably and efficiently. To exploit this potential, the EU-funded X-FLEX project has developed effective and affordable solutions to enable the optimised use of decentralised flexible energy assets, reducing costs and enhancing resilience.
Tools for grid optimisation, market participation and data integration
X-FLEX set out to enable all stakeholders to actively participate in energy markets to increase grid reliability and energy efficiency and create new market opportunities. To do this, they developed and piloted four tools. According to project coordinator Antonio Marqués of ETRA Research and Development, “the Gridflex tool for grid and microgrid operators leverages flexibility to mitigate congestion-related issues such as voltage and current instabilities and maintain power quality as the share of intermittent RES increases.” For flexibility managers, the Serviflex tool can effectively optimise flexible energy assets’ utilisation considering business and operational requirements and constraints. The Marketflex tool helps consumers and prosumers participate in energy markets either as individuals or via intermediate parties like retailers and aggregators. Finally, the X-Flex platform integrates data from various flexible energy assets and leverages the other tools to ensure a more secure, stable and environmentally friendly energy supply.
Improved grid operations, flexibility and resilience
The tools were piloted at four sites in Bulgaria, Greece and Slovenia, highlighting both benefits and challenges. “All pilots demonstrated an increase in renewable energy utilisation and self-sufficiency. The tools enabled effective unit forecasting and operation, and high flexibility availability particularly related to EV charging,” Marqués notes. Excellent observability and forecasting resulted in a comparatively short congestion mitigation time and, frequently, lower peak-to-average power ratios – an indication of greater efficiency. Fault mitigation following strong winds was also much faster, promising greater resilience in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events. However, the current lack of regulatory frameworks in most EU countries must be addressed to support the local energy communities essential to full exploitation of market-based flexibility services.
Economic, environmental and social benefits
X-FLEX energy management tools can reduce costs via smart energy production and storage and by leveraging flexibility in the energy market. The inherent environmental benefits are augmented by the increased local RES production seen in all pilots as an indirect consequence of using the tools. The economic and environmental benefits could have a positive impact on the tourism sector, not to mention the tools’ deployment impact on jobs in the IT sector. “Reducing costs, enhancing resilience and efficiency, and lowering emissions are all achievable by facilitating the smooth integration, management, and optimisation of RES into the grid and improving the matching of electrical generation and demand,” Marqués concludes. Having already identified enthusiastic potential replication sites, X-FLEX is well on its way to bringing stakeholders on board in leveraging flexibility markets with benefits for consumers, industry and the environment.
Keywords
X-FLEX, energy, grid, RES, flexible energy assets, energy markets, flexibility markets, distributed energy resources, microgrid, prosumers
