Authors:
Tiago Fonseca
1
;
Luis Lino Ferreira
1
;
Lurian Klein
2
;
Jorge Landeck
3
and
Paulo Sousa
1
Affiliations:
1
School of Engineering of the Polytechnical Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal
;
2
Cleanwatts, MIT Portugal Programme, Energy for Sustainability Initiative, Coimbra, Portugal
;
3
Univ. Coimbra, LIBPhys, Department of Physics, Coimbra, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Internet of Things, System Architecture, Energy, Demand-side Flexibility, Renewable Energy Community.
Abstract:
The electricity field is facing major challenges in the implementation of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) at a large scale. End users are taking on the role of electricity producers and consumers simultaneously (prosumers), acting like Distributed Energy Resources (DER), injecting their excess electricity into the grid. This challenges the management of grid load balance, increases running costs, and is later reflected in the tariffs paid by consumers, thus threatening the widespread of RES. The Flexigy project explores a solution to this topic by proposing a smart-grid architecture for day-ahead flexibility scheduling of individual and Renewable Energy Community (REC) resources. Our solution is prepared to allow Transmission System Operators (TSO) to request Demand Response (DR) services in emergency situations. This paper overviews the grid balance problematic, introduces the main concepts of energy flexibility and DR, and focuses its content on explaining the Flexigy architecture.