Based on an analysis of the scalability and replicability (SRA) of iFLEX solutions, the lessons learned from the project and the validation from the pilot sites, iFLEX has outlined a guideline strategy for the replicability of the solutions in other contexts . The recommendations for replicability are presented below, grouped in terms of regulatory, consumer, economic and technical factors. Download the reference book to see the full analysis and results.
iFLEX solutions
The iFLEX Assistant is an innovative software agent solution that facilitates energy consumer participation in demand responseDemand Response Intentional change of normal consumption patterns by energy consumers in response to external price signals (implicit DR) or incentives to reduce or increase consumption (explicit DR). Both operations can be automated. programmes. The iFLEX Assistant learns the home’s or building’s behaviour and dynamics to provide optimal and personalised flexibility management for the consumer. Furthermore, the iFLEX Assistant provides consumers with natural and seamless ways for communicating their requirements and preferences to tailor the flexibility management according to their needs. It also enables them to manage their household or building optimally, according to predefined goals and constraints. Goals can be defined in terms of costs, PV generation utilisation, environmental parameters, external incentives, DRDR Demand Response signals, etc. Constraints reflect technical limitations and user comfort and social preferences.
Two types of users are supported: building and household residents. The iFLEX Assistant supports the wrapping of a number of building and household energy management systems, which enables accessing data details as well as control capabilities of managed devices. User interfaces are provided to the consumer for the control and management of iFLEX Assistant instances and to the AggregatorAggregator Market participant acting between providers and users of flexibility. The Aggregator bundles flexibility resources (consumption, generation, storage) into a flexibility volume and offers the capability to activate it. for management of aggregated flexibility and participation in diverse DR programs. Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and advanced control techniques are used to help the end user effortlessly balance between goals and constraints, for the benefit of the user and the entire grid.
The iFLEX Framework solution is a collection of libraries, tools and configuration scripts that provide means for the development and deployment of iFLEX Assistants into different consumer/prosumer premises. It consists of four modules that enable the secure interaction between the building assets and the flexibility procurer with interfaces for both. It consists of:
- Resource Abstraction Interface & Security Data Management
- Hybrid Modelling and Flexibility Management
- End-user Interface
- Aggregator/Market Interface
The iFLEX solutions have been tested in Finland, Greece and Slovenia. Get a summary of the key lessons learned from a technical, user engagement and economic point of view.
Recommendations for replicability and scalability of iFLEX solutions
The recommendations are grouped according to four determining factors: Regulatory, economic, consumer and technical.
Definition of proper national legal framework for all new entrants in line with European legislation in all EU countries: The main roles and responsibilities of active end-consumers, aggregators and energy communities should be fully defined in all EU countries. A secondary legislation defining more detailed duties, rules, and procedures is also needed to ensure that these new actors can perform their activities in an efficient, non-discriminatory, and transparent manner.
Eligibility of all energy resources to participate equally in all electricity market segments and system operation services: National rules should legally allow all electricity market segments (i.e. day-ahead market, intra-dayIntraday market is the trading of energy within the day of delivery, closing one hour before delivery. market, balancing market) and system operation services (i.e., balancing and congestion management services) to be fully and equally opened to all types of distributed energy resources, including demand response actors. The aim is to ensure non-discriminatory access to distributed energy resources, individually or through aggregation, as required by the European legislation.
Definition of demand response baseline methodology and remuneration rules: A specific baseline methodology regarding the participation of demand response in all wholesaleWholesale market covers three markets of energy trading, each representing a time window: Day-ahead market, intraday market and real-time balancing market. electricity market segments should be transparent and balance integrity and accuracy. On top of this, clear and sustainable remuneration rules will further unlock consumer participation and engagement.
Definition of legal and regulatory framework for the integration of energy storage systems and electric vehicles: A clear, transparent and detailed legal and regulatory framework for the rapid integration of energy storage entities and electric vehicles in the power system, which can act complementarily with demand response resources, is of utmost importance towards maximising the efficient and economic operation of the grid. In this new power system operation paradigm, Transmission System Operators (TSOs) and Distribution System OperatorsDistribution System Operators A nationally regulated party responsible for a stable distribution of electricity through the low-voltage electricity grid in a given area (operation, maintenance and development of the system). (DSOs) should act as neutral market facilitators, unless no other market participant, including demand response, can ensure the provision of the required market and system operation services that can be provided by these innovative resources.
Establishment of local flexibility mechanisms: DSOs should procure flexibility services from providers of distributed generation, demand response or energy storage and shall promote the uptake of energy efficiency measures, where such services cost-effectively alleviate the need to upgrade or replace electricity capacity and support the efficient and secure operation of the distribution system. Moreover, flexibility procurement ought to happen, whenever possible, under market-based mechanisms and based on standard products. This demands DSOs and National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) to address the use of flexibility in the short-term. Hence, the network development plans made by DSOs shall include the use of demand response, energy efficiency, energy storage, or other resources that may be used as an alternative to system expansion. The implementation of flexibility mechanisms needs an innovative way of planning and operating the network that leads also to new organizational models and cost structure for the DSOs.
Removal of restrictive requirements for participation in wholesale marketWholesale market covers three markets of energy trading, each representing a time window: Day-ahead market, intraday market and real-time balancing market. segments and other mechanisms: Less restrictive requirements regarding the everyday participation of demand response in all wholesale market segments, such as smaller minimum product size and higher time granularity will enable the effective participation of demand response in these markets. To ensure capacity mechanisms and interruptibility schemes are effectively available to all resources with non-discriminatory design features and processes, restrictive eligibility requirements that directly exclude smaller units, units connected to lower voltage levels should be removed and capacity contracts should be set with the same provisions for all types of capacity providers to ensure a level-playing field.
Access to final customer data: National rules should allow new actors offering innovative solutions to get access to data of non-customers in a level playing field compared to suppliers while ensuring data protection and security. To ensure they all have access to data in a non-discriminatory manner and simultaneously, access to the same type and amount of data and through the same data platform or tool should be provided.
Broad communication campaigns through versatile channels (social media, websites, press): This will encourage overall implicit demand response, where the potential benefits for end users as well as appropriate key messages on the “green transition” should be clearly and concisely presented.
Clear and prompt communication to potential end users: Transparent and concise information (in lay language) of various aspects related to demand response, including new technologies, new business models and use cases, new companies and institutions, new data streams to be collected and shared what consumers/prosumers can expect in terms of impact on their daily lives (energy consumption), potential economic/non-economic benefits, existing and new service agreements, etc., should be provided from the very beginning of their involvement to eliminate any concerns raised by end-consumers regarding their participation in such projects and boost end-user interest and active participation.
Easiness in recruiting potential end users: The clear, concise and informative project presentation and goals, the effortless signing of associated informed consent forms, the clear presentation of potential benefits for end users are very important to simplify recruitment procedure.
Extensive surveys to identify technical and/or other restrictions in potential end users’ premises: Potential unavailability of flexible electrical loads, unavailability or poor quality of telecommunication infrastructure for the unobstructed communication of the installed equipment as well as premises that do not fulfil minimum requirements for the installation of the necessary technical equipment should be identified from the very beginning of the projects.
Targeted communication campaigns through messages, emails and reminders to specific groups of consumers: Demographic and societal criteria, personal preferences and habits, level of energy education, lifestyle and household/commercial/industrial information of the end consumers should be taken into account to formulate and spread insights and tips about ways to shift their energy consumption away from peak times or engage in energy efficiency actions.
Select and cluster end users based on their responsiveness to incentives: In general, it is for the benefit of the provider to select end users that are more responsive to incentives, because the offered DR incentives will be smaller. In this context, the total flexibility earned will be maximised when selecting more responsive users that also require a small amount of minimum incentives to participate. Adequate knowledge to discriminate users in groups (according to their responsiveness to incentives), would transfer part of the profit from the users to the provider without necessarily affecting the flexibility target. The provider should employ clustering techniques to split the user base in groups of similar characteristics. This would magnify the revenue and subsequently profit without increasing the budget.
Provide fully functional web/mobile interfaces designed for residents and property managers: These can be used to: a) monitor total energy consumption, environmental impact and residents’ apartment-specific data, b) provide energy advice, d) facilitate the involvement of the end consumers in DR actions through push notifications or other mechanisms, and d) visualise concrete benefits from their active participation in the project. Innovative functionalities, such as the possibility for the end user to provide feedback immediately if the living conditions become worse due to controls in the pilot, will assist towards maximising user acceptance and engagement.
Provide consumers with practical information about the power intensity of different devices, supplemented by additional information on lower power substitutes and more energy efficient means of using devices.
Targeted free (or more accessible) energy audits: The goal is to determine what can be done to optimise energy use and provide an estimate of the level of savings possible for some consumers.
Compliance with GDPR: Residents who are interested in having equipment installed should provide a signed consent for data collection. Legal complexities and implications should appropriately be considered in the formulation of the consent forms, while clauses regarding fair usage of the smart metering equipment, prohibiting unauthorised users from tampering with the installed equipment should be clearly included in the consent form. Finally, the equipment (and particularly any sensors that collect personal data) are resident/household-specific and, therefore, when a new resident moves into an apartment, a new personal data collection agreement must be approved/signed, or data collection should be stopped.
Collaborative partnerships with stakeholders: Fostering of collaborative partnerships with utilities, grid operators, technology vendors, energy service providers, and other stakeholders will leverage collective expertise, resources, and networks. This will allow for knowledge sharing, innovation, and cross-sector collaboration towards continuous improvement, innovation and large-scale replication of the developed demand response solutions.
Documentation of the system architecture: The iFLEX system architecture has been thoroughly documented in the relevant deliverables, thus allowing for an unobstructed large-scale replication of the proposed solutions.
Compliance with common standards for system architecture: Compliance with standard system architectures for smart grid premises, and the standard protocols at the information and communication layers have been guaranteed to allow for the integration of the iFLEX Assistants with demand-side flexibility management solutions developed outside the project.
Compliance with trust, security and privacy standards: iFLEX Assistant trust, security and privacy procedures, mechanisms and services are fully compliant with common standards and relevant regulation and legislation. In general, compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is addressed and fulfilled. Planned use cases have been carefully studied and assessed from privacy and information security point of view. The said compliance assures that the iFLEX Assistant and framework can be replicated in diverse environments and ecosystems and the compliance with regulation and legislation is not a barrier for replication in target countries. However, the iFLEX Assistant enables control of household or building devices which needs to be carefully checked and allowed only for authorised persons.
Wide rollout of smart meters: This will enable collecting higher quality data (e.g. eliminating downtime), which will also be validated by the Distribution System Operator, from a large number of end users. This can serve as a base for the development of improved accuracy models for tools such as Digital Twins. Furthermore, it could result in estimating the flexibility potential of various types of end users, including residential ones in an efficient way.
Use of smart HEMS systems that are able to connect directly to already installed devices at the end-user premises: The installation of such HEMS systems that are able to directly connect to already installed devices via wireless network and without interference with concealed electrical installations is an extremely simple, fast and efficient procedure, as a number of measuring and control parameters can be obtained from the devices via already existing communication protocols.
Ability to wrap diverse home and building energy management systems: Replication requires an ability to wrap diverse energy management systems (EMS) with an intent to collect data from the EMSs and to control the devices through EMS. On the one hand, since the iFLEX Assistant needs to support broad integration, compliance with common standards is a good indicator of wrapping ability. On the other hand, iFLEX has little control on what information is available from the EMSs. Often there is little or no information how EMS systems could be accessed or controlled.
Interoperability of the heterogeneous Building Automation System interfaces with the Resource Abstraction Interface module: This is a key challenge, which if addressed in the future with the implementation of domain standards like SAREF4ENER and EEBUS will allow for the large-scale replication of iFLEX solutions.
Target heating systems: Heating systems constitute a fair source of flexibility both in terms of power and energy. This is because most of the energy demand in buildings comes from heating and building thermal mass can be used for storing heat (energy) for several hours.
Automation of flexible assets: This is based on the end users’ preferences and greatly facilitates the provision of flexibility, as it does not require the physical presence of the residential end user at the premises to manually activate or deactivate a device. On top of that, automated operation enables avoiding end users’ fatigue, which is caused by multiple interactions with energy and flexibility management applications, such as the iFLEX Assistant.
Use of HTTP Rest and MQTT protocols: Regarding the communication layer, the iFLEX system architecture is based on highly scalable HTTP REST and MQTT protocols. The scalability of HTTP is evident in the WWW. Depending on the quality of service, a single MQTT broker can serve up to 40.000 messages/second when run on a typical computer. A single broker is therefore enough to serve more than 100.000 customers in typical iFLEX use cases. The system can be easily scaled to larger group of iFAs by adding new MQTT brokers and configuring the routing between iFAs and aggregation platforms accordingly.
Extend OpenADR for cloud-based communications or DR clients (VENs) managing multiple customers: Following the domain standards, the interactions with the Demand Response Management System (DRMS) were modelled on the basis of OpenADR2.0 profile (also available as IEC 62746-10-1 ED1). However, the use of this protocol could prove a bottleneck in the design, since it was designed for field-device communication, rather than cloud-based communication as it is in the case of many iFLEX Assistant components relevant in the DR communication lifecycle. A recommendation would be to extend OpenADR for cloud-based communications or DR clients (also known as VENs) managing multiple customers.
Use of the agile approach: The agile approach for the development of a user-friendly interface for a web or mobile application can be very efficient and deliver high-quality end results.
Target competitive retail markets: Highly concentrated retail electricity markets limit new entrants’ ability to compete on a level playing field and to offer innovative and flexibility products allowing end consumers’ to benefit from potential costs savings. In addition, markets where low correlation between the energy component of retail prices and the associated wholesale market prices is observed discourage and limit the possibility of new actors to gain acceptance and market shares. Therefore, iFLEX should target primarily market jurisdictions that are characterised by intense competition and low retail market concentration to effectively promote and replicate its proposed solutions at a large scale.
Removal of price interventions: Retail price interventions, including regulated prices, are not a barrier when targeted and aimed at those most in need. However, in some markets retail price intervention essentially kills the business case for new actors, such as aggregators and suppliers, aiming at unlocking flexibility from innovative distributed energy resources, including demand response. Therefore, it is recommended that any retail price interventions should not target the entire customer base, but they should be targeted and aimed solely at those most in need (e.g. low-income households, vulnerable end-consumers, etc.)
Formulation of clear, transparent and precise electricity bill: The electricity bill should be clear, transparent, precise and easily replicable by the end-consumers. A higher share of the electricity supply cost component as well as a higher correlation between the energy consumption and the network charges would provide end-consumers with clear price signals to enhance their flexibility potential. Additionally, other charges/levies that are fully irrelevant to the electricity consumption (e.g. municipal tax, property tax, etc.) should be removed from the electricity bill.
Availability of retail contracts with time-differentiation: Time-differentiated retail electricity contracts can provide adequate price signals to end-consumers as regards the cost of electricity production, transmission and distribution depending on the time of consumption.
– Electricity supply cost: The availability of dynamic pricing regarding electricity supply cost will be a key enabler towards maximising end-consumers engagement in demand response schemes.
– Network charges: Variable network tariffs will allow end-consumers to actively participate in the energy management of their premises and benefit themselves by exploiting reduced (or even zero) network charges when their energy behaviour contributes towards alleviating network burden. The formulation of a specific methodology that would allow the Distribution System Operator to incentivise end users to shift their electricity consumption in order to minimise peak load consumption that requires higher network utilisation in terms of electricity transfer, and, in turn, higher energy losses would further facilitate the deployment of demand response. programs.
However, the effectiveness of the associated price signals depends on the share of the respective cost components (supply cost, transmission cost, distribution cost) in the electricity bill (see also point above) and/or the price differences between the applied time intervals.
Application of customised discounts or special retail tariffs to end consumers participating in pilot projects: The billing systems of the electricity supply companies involved in such projects should be able to apply customised discounts or any special tariffs related to the incentive policies on end-consumers.
Promotion of exogenous rewards based on agreed reward mechanisms that are not linked to electricity usage or billing: Exogenous rewards (prizes or redeemable incentives) should be carefully designed to motivate users’ enthusiastic participation in such innovative DR projects. Such awards can be introduced prior to the application of customised discounts or special retail tariffs to end-consumers participating in pilot projects or in parallel with them.
Non-monetary/redeemable incentives to end-consumers can also be successful: Energy awareness and particularly the increase of awareness regarding the effects of each resident’s own energy consumption behavior, the familiarisation of residents with the concept of energy flexibility and the ways in which a household consumer can provide flexibility are decisive factors towards promoting their participation in energy flexibility actions in the future.
Implementation of innovative trading schemes between market stakeholders: The implementation of innovative trading schemes such as the bilateral trading scheme between a RES and DR Aggregator for mitigating imbalances in RES generation within an augmented common portfolio of RES units and end-user demand-side flexibility resources that was tested in the iFLEX Greek pilot would add value and facilitate the large-scale replication of iFLEX, since it has proven to be beneficial for all the three types of stakeholders involved (i.e. RES Aggregator, DR Aggregator, end consumers). However, certain modifications of the existing legal and regulatory frameworks may be necessary to allow for the real-life implementation of the proposed scheme.
