Distribution grid energy flexibility: the Ebalance-Plus technologies developed for the University of Calabria Demo Site

The integration of renewable energy sources is one of the principal issues of the electric power system. The ebalance-plus project to achieve this goal will implement and test a management energy platform and new business models. Such solutions will be tested in four demo sites located in Spain, Denmark, France, and Italy. The Italian demo site is considered in this paper. After the first part, in which the configuration of the Italian demo site is described, the technological solutions implemented to provide energy flexibility are listed.


Increase of renewable generation and distributed energy resources Decrease of dispatchable plants
The distribution networks are facing new operational challenges due to RES intermittent characteristics and increased network utilization so new regulation and balancing resources have to be deployed Various frameworks have been defined to ease the energy flexibility and in particular the associated market flexibility Opportunities for distribution system operators to cope with these challenges to exploit the flexibility of distributed energy resources (DERs) and end-users using different market mechanisms in the power system This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N°864283

Energy Flexibility
Objectives: -increase the energy flexibility of distribution grids; -predict the available flexibility; -increase the distribution electricity grid resilience; -design and test new ancillary models to promote new local markets based on energy flexibility; -test a variety of Ebalanceplus tecnological solutions (electric smart-storage at building and district level, V2G systems with local DC networks and SiC power inverters, power to heat, management of PV power inverters, regulation of CHP and management of appliances/devices with IoT-based systems) at four real demonstration sites located in Spain, Italy, France and Denmark. Additional laboratory testing will address safety issues. Another special feature of Ebalanceplus is its social and market orientation. The project work plan covers a 4-year period and involves 15 partners from 10 countries. All project activities and results are divided into 9 work packages, dealing with research, analysis, evaluation and exploitation to achieve future replicability.
The aim is to increase network flexibility and resilience by creating and integrating smart energy technologies into an energy balancing platform proposing a local energy flexibility market model

Different ways to provide energy flexibility
Using ESSs allows one to modify both the load and generation profile Demand Response program, which requires active user interaction, or in any case requires schedulable and interruptible loads.
Reduction of the maximum power absorbed by the network, reducing power peaks, moving the electrical load in the hours in which there is surplus of power, providing frequency and voltage regulation service, facing network congestion and so on.
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N°864283 The structure of the UNC demo site has been implemented in order to be able to implement and observe what has been described and theoretically defined in terms of flexibility resources and services.
• Variety of buildings: laboratories and classrooms, administrative offices, library, and student residence that represent both electric and thermal passive loads.
• MV substation with a ring distribution grid in MV (contracted power of 8 MW) • Several renewable energy generation plants are operating.
• Some buildings and plants have been equipped with monitoring and control systems.
• Considered as an aggregation of consumers, prosumers and producers

The University of Calabria campus
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N°864283 The UNC demo site objectives are: 1. Increasing the energy flexibility of buildings both in terms of consumption (IoT devices and smart appliance to enable DR program) and generation (PV power modulation); 2. Deploying resilience services and increase the grid reliability, supporting DSO/TSO services; 3. Simulating and testing the benefits of demand response services to manage the energy flexibility; 4. Testing smart-grid automation and control technologies to unlock the available flexibility;

How to provide Flexibility services in the UNC demo site
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N°864283 The main objectives of the devices/upgrades that would be deployed are: •Improve the control, automation and communication (with the DSO/Aggregators) of primary substations; •Improve the control, automation and communication of secondary substations; •Enable and improve the management of flexibility resources (m-chp unit, PV plants and electric and thermal storage); •Test demand response program and evaluate the responsiveness of the end-users using IoT devices and small smart storage units; •Integrate the energy management system and flexible resources in the project platform; •Increase the office building flexibility, using smart storage systems.

How to provide Flexibility services in the UNC demo site
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N°864283 1. MV/MV primary substation "MegaCentrale"; 2. Four office buildings "Cubo"; 3. Four MV/LV substations; 4. Five apartments of Monaci residential; 5. An experimental microgrid of Chiodo2 residential building (experimental AC/DC Microgrid is present, has been chosen. where a hybrid AC/DC microgrid has been deployed. It consists of three nano-grids installed and connected to a common DC bus operating as a unique hybrid AC/DC microgrid. This microgrid integrates two PV plants, one stirling -engine mCHP, a lithium battery energy storage, several electric loads, and some controllable loads. Moreover, one heat pump with thermal storage is installed).