Periodic Reporting for period 4 - STORY (STORY- Added value of STORage in distribution sYstems)
Période du rapport: 2018-11-01 au 2020-10-31
The main objective of STORY was to show the added value that storage can bring for a flexible, secure and sustainable energy system.
The future European grid has to serve a diverse and mixed landscape of users in a situation of mixed rules and responsibilities depending on the policy and regulatory choices. Challenges include high penetration of renewables, bi-directional flows of different energy vectors and growing number of users. We need to strengthen the position of the EU energy industry, including those players active in producing solutions for security of supply, increased share of renewables and grid stability.
The actions that the 18 members from 8 EU countries in STORY consortium took in the 5,5-year project contributed to turn these challenges into opportunities. Besides development of the most viable storage- and ICT solutions for the demonstration sites, they also analysed the impact of large penetration of the technologies through simulations, the effect of policies and regulations on the business opportunities of storage-related industry and communicated the findings to wider community through systematic strategies for impact creation.
STORY solutions successfully navigated the highly interrelated technical, market, regulatory and social issues, and our results shed light to all of them, enabling a more efficient roll out of small and medium sized storages.
The future European grid has to serve a diverse and mixed landscape of users in a situation of mixed rules and responsibilities depending on the policy and regulatory choices. Challenges include high penetration of renewables, bi-directional flows of different energy vectors and growing number of users. We need to strengthen the position of the EU energy industry, including those players active in producing solutions for security of supply, increased share of renewables and grid stability.
The actions that the 18 members from 8 EU countries in STORY consortium took in the 5,5-year project contributed to turn these challenges into opportunities. Besides development of the most viable storage- and ICT solutions for the demonstration sites, they also analysed the impact of large penetration of the technologies through simulations, the effect of policies and regulations on the business opportunities of storage-related industry and communicated the findings to wider community through systematic strategies for impact creation.
STORY solutions successfully navigated the highly interrelated technical, market, regulatory and social issues, and our results shed light to all of them, enabling a more efficient roll out of small and medium sized storages.
The demonstration activities in STORY successfully showed the added value that storage can bring to a flexible, secure and sustainable energy system. They showed the possibilities of small and medium scale storages to support the grid in the case of increased share of renewable energy, but also revealed the potential barriers and provided learnings on important aspects when planning an energy storage project.
The technical evaluation of the large-scale storage effects showed that the large-scale implementation of the small and medium scale storages could have positive effects on the grid: self-sufficiency and self-consumption levels can be increased, network losses decreased and RES variability impact on the network can be mitigated. The analysis of the storage technologies’ impact on environmental, social and employment aspects was also conducted, based on Life cycle analysis approach. In the scenarios studied, the most important environmental factor was the amount of PV power installed in the distribution grid and the ability of the grid to transport the PV electricity. The analysis of the employment creation effects showed that the implementation of PV and storage can lead to significant employment opportunities on a global and EU level.
The results of the large-scale simulations were compared with the STORY demos, on three main dimensions: technical results, greenhouse gas impact and economic evaluation. These analyses revealed that storage can have an important role in RES deployment by delaying infrastructure reinforcement or improving power quality. As break-even points from an economic and an environmental perspective might differ and therefore both should be carefully considered. To outweigh potential negative GHG impacts that might occur in case of a wide roll-out, storage needs to be tailored to a specific purpose (e.g. mitigating RES curtailment or peak load shifting).
Regarding the market and regulatory environment, the STORY learnings were collected into a storage deployment handbook. It presents a bird’s eye view on storage business models and regulation followed by a summary of the STORY project recommendations that are supported and further explained in detailed chapters. This way, a holistic overview of storage business models and regulation is presented from different points of view, each chapter addressing a specific stakeholder group.
The impact creation activities in STORY project have been realised on broad front: by disseminating the findings and learnings from the project in newsletters (together with other BRIDGE projects), four project highlight papers, educational and informative movies, with active participation in the BRIDGE work, involving stakeholders in discussions and using the STORY Advisory Board as a trusted advisor for the project activities. There has been impressive visibility for STORY, with over 350 000 views and interactions through website and social media. STORY partners have been invited for talks and presentations on several national and international events. The Suha demo site got exceptional visibility when the Presidents of Slovenia and Finland jointly visited the site.
STORY has advanced products, developed new tools that deliver business-ready solutions and led to a relevant number of commercial contracts. STORY led to new ways of cooperation in the landscape of EU funded projects. STORY also substantially contributed to the policy and regulatory developments e.g. in Flanders, Austria and Slovenia, but also at the European scale.
The technical evaluation of the large-scale storage effects showed that the large-scale implementation of the small and medium scale storages could have positive effects on the grid: self-sufficiency and self-consumption levels can be increased, network losses decreased and RES variability impact on the network can be mitigated. The analysis of the storage technologies’ impact on environmental, social and employment aspects was also conducted, based on Life cycle analysis approach. In the scenarios studied, the most important environmental factor was the amount of PV power installed in the distribution grid and the ability of the grid to transport the PV electricity. The analysis of the employment creation effects showed that the implementation of PV and storage can lead to significant employment opportunities on a global and EU level.
The results of the large-scale simulations were compared with the STORY demos, on three main dimensions: technical results, greenhouse gas impact and economic evaluation. These analyses revealed that storage can have an important role in RES deployment by delaying infrastructure reinforcement or improving power quality. As break-even points from an economic and an environmental perspective might differ and therefore both should be carefully considered. To outweigh potential negative GHG impacts that might occur in case of a wide roll-out, storage needs to be tailored to a specific purpose (e.g. mitigating RES curtailment or peak load shifting).
Regarding the market and regulatory environment, the STORY learnings were collected into a storage deployment handbook. It presents a bird’s eye view on storage business models and regulation followed by a summary of the STORY project recommendations that are supported and further explained in detailed chapters. This way, a holistic overview of storage business models and regulation is presented from different points of view, each chapter addressing a specific stakeholder group.
The impact creation activities in STORY project have been realised on broad front: by disseminating the findings and learnings from the project in newsletters (together with other BRIDGE projects), four project highlight papers, educational and informative movies, with active participation in the BRIDGE work, involving stakeholders in discussions and using the STORY Advisory Board as a trusted advisor for the project activities. There has been impressive visibility for STORY, with over 350 000 views and interactions through website and social media. STORY partners have been invited for talks and presentations on several national and international events. The Suha demo site got exceptional visibility when the Presidents of Slovenia and Finland jointly visited the site.
STORY has advanced products, developed new tools that deliver business-ready solutions and led to a relevant number of commercial contracts. STORY led to new ways of cooperation in the landscape of EU funded projects. STORY also substantially contributed to the policy and regulatory developments e.g. in Flanders, Austria and Slovenia, but also at the European scale.
The main aspects where STORY has contributed to the progress beyond state-of-the-art are:
1) Technologies: In the demo cases, a range of combinations of diverse storage technologies at different TRL levels with distributed generation were investigated. Although the technologies used in the demonstrations may be standard, the way they were used in the demonstrations is clearly beyond the state-of-the-art.
2) Technical integration: STORY demonstrated novel ways of using and integrating technologies with the help of ICT tools for the control and management of the local networks.
3) Modelling: STORY developed simulation models for the demo sites, including those with more than 1 energy vector. The models were calibrated and verified by the demonstrations. The simulations also contributed to the extrapolation, where the opportunities for the investors created by wider penetration of storages in the grid was studied.
4) Monitoring: New STORY methodology features storage-specific Key Performance Indicators allowing for value analysis of the services rendered by storage. It allows for streamlined Use Case design that reflect the business models the actors employ in demo sites.
5) Value chain: STORY demonstrations included different levels of the power value chain. The impacts of STORY on the larger scale levels of the value chain, such as power markets, and high- and medium voltage electricity networks was considered in the extrapolation task through simulations.
6) Strong and open cooperation: STORY has followed an ambitious dissemination and communication strategy, including active participation in BRIDGE activities, resulting e.g. in contribution to EU- and individual state level regulations.
7) Communication technologies: STORY developed a communication platform for the demonstration sites, including the information and control exchanges and integrated the measuring and monitoring in the platform.
8) Regulations and policies: STORY provided a comprehensive guide for policy makers and regulators showing the pros and cons of different approaches to the integration of storage technologies.
9) Competitiveness for the business actors: The increased competitiveness of European industries in the area of storage technologies requires in addition to the thorough analysis of the preconditions, also a development of competitive business models. STORY has provided a transparent and clear overview of the impacts that regulated or market driven roll out of storage will have for each of the stakeholders.
1) Technologies: In the demo cases, a range of combinations of diverse storage technologies at different TRL levels with distributed generation were investigated. Although the technologies used in the demonstrations may be standard, the way they were used in the demonstrations is clearly beyond the state-of-the-art.
2) Technical integration: STORY demonstrated novel ways of using and integrating technologies with the help of ICT tools for the control and management of the local networks.
3) Modelling: STORY developed simulation models for the demo sites, including those with more than 1 energy vector. The models were calibrated and verified by the demonstrations. The simulations also contributed to the extrapolation, where the opportunities for the investors created by wider penetration of storages in the grid was studied.
4) Monitoring: New STORY methodology features storage-specific Key Performance Indicators allowing for value analysis of the services rendered by storage. It allows for streamlined Use Case design that reflect the business models the actors employ in demo sites.
5) Value chain: STORY demonstrations included different levels of the power value chain. The impacts of STORY on the larger scale levels of the value chain, such as power markets, and high- and medium voltage electricity networks was considered in the extrapolation task through simulations.
6) Strong and open cooperation: STORY has followed an ambitious dissemination and communication strategy, including active participation in BRIDGE activities, resulting e.g. in contribution to EU- and individual state level regulations.
7) Communication technologies: STORY developed a communication platform for the demonstration sites, including the information and control exchanges and integrated the measuring and monitoring in the platform.
8) Regulations and policies: STORY provided a comprehensive guide for policy makers and regulators showing the pros and cons of different approaches to the integration of storage technologies.
9) Competitiveness for the business actors: The increased competitiveness of European industries in the area of storage technologies requires in addition to the thorough analysis of the preconditions, also a development of competitive business models. STORY has provided a transparent and clear overview of the impacts that regulated or market driven roll out of storage will have for each of the stakeholders.