Active consumers project

The aim of the project is the development and presentation of the system that enables the inclusion of minor active consumers in electricity and ancillary services market.

As the member of a Slovenian consortium, ELES Company actively collaborates in the "Development and presentation of technologies for the activation of technological and economic potential of flexible consumption and dispersed generation with minor consumers" project (shortly Active consumers). Project that is co-financed by SPIRIT Slovenia public agency within the scope of the Regional Development Fund. This three-year project incorporates 10 partners.

The aim of the project is the development and presentation of the system that enables the inclusion of minor active consumers in electricity and ancillary services market by introducing advanced services of adapting the consumption of consumers and the production of small dispersed generation devices (solar power plants).

The access of minor consumers and dispersed generation devices to electricity and ancillary services markets contributes to:

  • the inclusion of flexibility of such consumers and the increase of available ancillary service capacities; 
  • the establishment of new services (regulation of voltage profile, reactive power compensation etc.) intended for distribution system operators;
  • reducing the needs for investing in the development and upgrade of networks;
  • raising the awareness about the importance of flexible consumption of energy in accordance with the network situation and the situation in electricity markets;
  • the improvement of economics of investments in dispersed renewable energy sources, smart and energy efficient devices of consumers;
  • additional functionality of smart devices connected on the aggregator platform enabling owners of devices to create additional income (monetization);
  • an increased self-supply with energy introduces the option of island-like operation on the consumer’s level - by controlling consumption and KPI it contributes to reducing the consumption of electricity in households and consequently to lower greenhouse gases emissions.

The project will connect several separately developed products and services each with their own specific purpose. The most complex new product, i.e. the comprehensive integration of project results will contain the following services based on aggregating the flexible consumption and the generation of dispersed minor consumers:

  • Ancillary services for network balance – intended for transmission system operator (primary regulation, secondary regulation, positive and negative tertiary regulation);
  • Network voltage regulation – intended for distribution system operator;
  • Balancing services – intended for balance groups or responsible entities of balance groups;
  • Flexibility marketing – intended for flexible providers of service (GEN-I will offer flexibility on the balancing market, the intraday market and the day-ahead market;
  • Management of self-supply or island operation – intended for individual consumers or a small number of connected consumers;
  • Effective consumption of energy of active consumers by introducing monitoring and KPI indicators.

The project is very interesting for ELES due to the connection with the Slovenian-Japanese project NEDO that will be realised in the following manners: by comparing two technical solutions of including minor consumption and aggregating minor consumption from the project with other flexible consumption of the NEDO project that will potentially be available during the second phase of NEDO project.

 

Project Profile

  • Duration: 2017 – 2020
  • Project value: EUR 3,327,546.60 – eligible and ineligible costs (co-financed by the Regional Development Fund in the amount of EUR 1,103,922.89)
  • Value of ELES's activities: EUR 120,819.00 – total value of consortium partner project, EUR 30,204.75 – expected amount of consortium partner subsidy
  • Source of funding: Regional Development Fund
  • Partners: GEN-I, ELEKTRO LJUBLJANA, COSYLAB, SITEL, ELEKTRINA, GOAP, TERMO-TEHNIKA, PLAN-NET, ELES
  • ELES's role: assisting partner, result validator, system services buyers representative, benchmarking with NEDO project results