FlexiGrid Tools for Real-Life Demonstrations of Local Energy System Concepts at Chalmers Campus Testbed

The ongoing transition in the energy system is accompanied by various challenges such as congestion and voltage violations in electricity distribution networks. Suggested solutions to these challenges are, among others, local energy and flexibility markets, new tariff designs, and centralized control. Simulation and demonstration of such solutions often require a broad chain of tools that need to be automated. The aim of this paper is to present a simulation and demonstration platform integrating several of the required tool and their deployment at the Chalmers Campus test bed. The developed tools include PV and load forecasting, congestion forecasting, energy management system, model predictive control algorithms, and local energy and flexibility markets. The tools are integrated using a common and reusable platform called LESOOP for simulation and demonstration. Demonstration examples of PV and load forecasts, congestion forecasts, model predictive control, and energy management systems are presented and results are discussed. The paper contributes to a more successful transition of the energy system by sharing experiences and provides better understanding of the tool functionalities at the Chalmers campus test-bed. The identified gaps and gained knowledge from the real-life demonstrations at the test-bed can be valuable to projects and researchers aiming to develop a test-bed.

I. Introduction

Environmental issues and energy supply security have ascended over the past years due to the fast-dwindling natural resources and the rapid increase in fossil fuel demand. Depletion of fossil fuel and their climate change concerns are leading to a transition in power generation from fossil fuels to renewable energy system (RES) [1], [2]. Meanwhile, the interactions among different energy carriers have been growing with the increasing utilization of intermittent photovoltaic (PV) panels, battery energy storage (BES), heat pump (HP), and combined heat, and power plant (CHP) technologies [3], [4]. However, these interactions have posed challenges in the electricity distribution networks. The challenges include e.g. network congestion, voltage stability issues, and coordination problem at a community level. To bridge the gap between research and deployment, this paper proposes a framework for local energy communities or distribution systems to automatically coordinate their energy resources to overcome these challenges using different tools. This automation opens up the possibility to implement and test solutions such as local flexibility markets (LFMs), local energy markets (LEM), and tariff designs addressing the challenges at the local levels. Moreover, real-life demonstrations on a physical demonstration site at the Chalmers campus with the support of the Chalmers IoT platform provide valuable benefits of the interoperable tools. Furthermore, it contributes to a better understanding of the challenges of scaling and the commercial execution of the proposed platform.