FEVER will implement and demonstrate solutions and services that leverage flexibility towards offering electricity grid services that address problems of the distribution grid, thus enabling it to function in a secure and resilient manner. The project encompasses technologies and techniques for extraction of energy flexibilities from virtual and explicit energy storage (batteries, V2G) and demand response. FEVER will leverage the potential for flexibility due to the electrification of sectors such as heating (heat pumps, district heating) and cooling (e.g. industrial refrigeration). In FEVER we will implement a comprehensive flexibility aggregation, management and trading solution that incorporates intelligence around the optimal flexibility orchestration and is capable to offer flexibility services in different markets (local, wholesale). In addition, a peer-to-peer flexibility trading toolbox will be implemented with a distributed ledger technology enabling autonomous peer-to-peer trading. FEVER will implement a set of goal-oriented applications and tools that empower DSOs with optimal grid observability and controllability. The DSO toolbox will include advanced monitoring and automated control functions (critical event prevention, self-healing, island-mode power management, etc.). FEVER will carry out extensive demonstration and testing activities in multiple settings. For scalability assessment the project includes large scale simulations of novel market mechanisms for day-ahead and continuous trading of flexibility services, and simulations of wholesale-retail market coupling.These simulations will contribute to the quantification of the impact of flexibility services at the distribution grid level and beyond (transmission level). FEVER’s holistic approach to flexibility will facilitate establishing and operating appropriate business models for all players in the market, thereby providing the EU with a secure, efficient and resilient electric grid.

Achieving the European environmental objectives for 2020 requires not only technological progress, but also a major change in energy consumption behaviour. The enCOMPASS project will implement and validate an integrated socio-technical approach to behavioural change for energy saving, by developing innovative user-friendly digital tools to make energy consumption data available and understandable for different stakeholders (residents, visitors, public actors, building managers, utilities and ICT-providers) in ways that empower them to achieve energy savings and manage their needs in energy efficient, cost-effective and comfortable ways. It will demonstrate how this can be achieved with a holistic approach that integrates visualisation of energy data collected from smart sensors, user-generated information and context-aware collaborative recommendations for energy saving, intelligent control and adaptive gamified incentives. The enCOMPASS system will be realized as an open platform combining 1) context-dependent energy usage information from in-home sensors (smart meters and smart home appliances for heat and electricity), 2) user-generated information (automatic and manual activity tracking), 3) adaptive gamified energy visualisation and 4) intelligent controls and automation. The platform is developed to achieve sustainable changes in user energy consumption patterns without compromising comfort levels. The enCOMPASS system will integrate existing technology, product and service offerings of the utility and technology partners, customize and extend them to offer improved and new types of their offerings. The enCOMPASS platform is the heart of a new business ecosystem that enables players in the energy domain to develop their own white-label solutions on top of the platform, or to integrate and use individual services or platform modules. This set-up results in societal, environmental and economic impact of enCOMPASS above and beyond the reach of the pilots.

The stability and security of the traditional electrical power systems is largely based on the inherent properties of synchronous generators (SGs). Such properties are: the grid-forming capability, the inertia, the damping of transients, and the provision of large currents during faults. The growing penetration of converter-interfaced (thus inertia-less) Distributed Renewable Energy Sources (DRES) will eventually replace dispatchable SGs and increase power volatility, causing large frequency deviations and voltage regulation problems. The increase of SG spinning reserves, the grid reinforcement and the use of central electric energy storage systems are some solutions proposed to tackle this problem. However, due to their centralized approach and high cost, these actions can be undertaken only centrally by TSOs and DSOs. By adopting a unified bottom-up approach, EASY-RES will develop novel control algorithms for all converter-interfaced DRES, to enable them to operate similarly to conventional SGs, providing to the grid inertia, damping of transients, reactive power, fault ride through and fault-clearing capabilities, and adaptable response to primary and secondary frequency control. These new functionalities will be transparent to all grid voltage levels. The EASY-RES approach is based on the distribution network segmentation into small Individual Control Areas, where the DRES and properly sized storage systems will be optimally coordinated via suitably designed ICT infrastructure to provide Ancillary Services (AS) such as inertial response, reactive power support, power smoothing, and contribution to fault-clearing in a bottom-up approach: prosumers and independent RES producers to DSOs, and DSOs to TSOs. By evaluating the costs and benefits of the developed functionalities, viable business models will be developed for the aforementioned stakeholders. Finally, modifications to the existing grid codes will be suggested for the implementation of the developed AS.

eCREW coordinates and supports the roll-out of an innovative scheme of household cooperation in energy management. These are Community Renewable Energy Webs (CREWs), in which households jointly exploit household-level electricity generation and battery storage capacities and optimise energy efficiency and expenditures. The key purpose of CREWs is to support the transition of passive consumers to active participants in the local energy system through informed decisions and collective actions. In eCREW, three energy companies from DE, TR and ES (Lighthouse Communities) will roll-out the eCREW approach to their clients. A strong and divers Follower Community made up of entities from AT, DE, ES, FR, GR, SE and TR is made fit for giving the eCREW approach a “Go”, too. Together, 240,000 households will be enabled to join a CREW during the project runtime, establishing about 200 CREWs with 15,000 participants, saving at least 13 GWh/year. Cooperation within a CREW is facilitated through the provision of an award-winning smart phone app (PEAKapp), exploiting smart meter data to stimulate an increase in energy efficiency and the uptake of local renewable electricity generation. Administration of the CREWs, including the billing of consumption and generation, is covered by electricity retailing companies which are thereby transformed into holistic service providers; we call them Community Administering Entities (CAEs). In our approach, administrative burdens are relieved from the households, who are then free to focus their efforts on making the most out of their participation in a CREW. Monetary benefits from the eCREW approach are distributed amongst prosumers, traditional consumers, and the CAE through an innovative split-incentives contract applied in the project. The financial arrangement is tailored to ensure that the eCREW approach is financially viable and attractive for all participants and allows a non-discriminatory participation of all households.