Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ERIGrid (European Research Infrastructure supporting Smart Grid Systems Technology Development, Validation and Roll Out)

Teaser

\"There is a clear trend towards an increase in the number of distributed energy sources being introduced into the electric energy infrastructure. Power grids, in their current form, will soon be unable to cope with the increased use of distributed and renewable energy sources...

Summary

\"There is a clear trend towards an increase in the number of distributed energy sources being introduced into the electric energy infrastructure. Power grids, in their current form, will soon be unable to cope with the increased use of distributed and renewable energy sources. As such, intelligent power networks are required to cope with this challenge while still managing both the complexity and scale. As an example, fluctuating wind and solar power generation hardly ever correlates with actual demand. For the future, better coordination and optimization between generators and consumers is essential in order to secure both the power supply and quality. Based on these necessary and expected developments, it is envisioned that a complex system of \"\"smart grids\"\" will evolve to integrate numerous and sophisticated automation, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a solution to the enormous challenges that the energy supply is facing. Until now, research has largely focused on investigating and developing individual and stand-alone aspects of smart grids, while holistic evaluation was often out of reach due to the lack of suitable research infrastructures. 18 European research institutions, from across 11 different countries, have teamed up together in the trans-national ERIGrid project in order to tackle this problem. ERIGrid will provide a single point of access to integrated smart grid research infrastructures addressing the following key objectives:

• To integrate major European research centres with outstanding smart grid research infrastructures for the joint development of common methods, concepts, and procedures.
• To integrate and enhance the necessary research services for analysing, validating, and testing smart grid configurations.
• To support the technology development as well as the roll-out of smart grid approaches, solutions and concepts in Europe that are based on a holistic, cyber-physical systems approach.
• To provide system-level support and education for industrial and academic researchers in the area of smart grid research and technology development.

The validation of smart grid technologies requires a holistic approach that covers the full range of involved domains. In addition to the technical aspects, it is important to consider that there are other strong influencers, with differing objectives, which determine grid operation (customers, markets, regulators, etc.). All the stakeholders have differing goals and behaviours leading to further complexity of the grid. A holistic approach combines the different perspectives of smart grid elements and actors. It follows that research infrastructures and stakeholders need to be integrated together, to provide better opportunities for further innovation by academic and industrial researchers. This will provide an ideal environment for training the next generation of researchers and engineers, within the networking activities of ERIGrid.\"

Work performed

The first period was dedicated to set up the integrated, Pan-European smart grid research infrastructure and to start with the implementation of the corresponding Networking (NA), Joint Research (JRA), and Trans-national Access (TA) activities for achieving the project objectives. The second period focused on the further development of the holistic validation procedure as well as the implementation of the advanced simulation and laboratory-based validation methods and tools. A significant effort was also put on the provision of access to the ERIGrid infrastructures. Several calls for TA user projects have been implemented and access was provided to various user groups. Summarizing, the following main achievements have been reached:

Networking Activities:
• Various educational activities (incl. summer/winter schools, tutorials, and webinars) were realized to teach developments from the NAs and JRAs. Corresponding tools and material were developed.
• The project set-up and maintained various links with European, national, and international research projects, networks, and initiatives in order to discuss validation and testing issues in a broader scale.
• Project results have been published at various conferences and scientific journals and were also presented at trade fairs and other type of public events.
• For the development of holistic system integration and testing procedures; the relevant terminology and corresponding validation approach has been specified. A relational database which includes the partner profiling and research infrastructure information was also defined and implemented. A mapping approach allows the assignment of test cases to the most suitable research infrastructure.

Joint Research Activities:
• The work carried out to identify relevant smart grid scenarios to be implemented in the integrated Pan-European research infrastructure, led to the definition of system configurations. They have been used as basis for the development and improvement of system-level validation approaches and corresponding tools using co-simulation, Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL), and lab-based concepts.
• Several test cases were identified based on research challenges relevant to co-simulation, HIL validation, and lab-based testing containing various smart grid properties. They have been used to test the different validation and testing approaches in ERIGrid.
• A generic interface model for defining control hierarchies, interfaces and data flow of complex distributed energy resource and smart grid applications testing schemes for labs was successfully developed.
• A harmonized testing methodology has been defined for the standardisation of testing procedures.
• For the realization of a virtual Pan-European research infrastructure a cloud-based software platform has been developed which allows to connect all ERIGrid infrastructures together for joint experiments. Frist test showed promising results.

Trans-national Access Activities:
• Overall, five calls for TA user projects have been implemented which attracted 85 submissions from researchers and engineers mainly from Europe.
• After pre-screening for feasibility by the ERIGrid infrastructures and the evaluation of them by the User Selection Panel (USP) most of the proposals have been accepted.
• Until now, about 35 projects were successfully implemented and finalized until the end of this reporting period.

Final results

In order to tackle the lack of an integrated approach for analysing and evaluating smart grid approach, technologies, and solutions ERIGrid enhances the state-of-the-art in simulation and lab-based testing. The main improvements are related to the harmonization of the coupling of domain-specific simulation tools (incl. real-time simulation and HIL), the further development of lab-based testing methods as well as the coupling of different lab-environments supported by holistic, multi-domain validation approach. ERIGrid also provides a single entry point to various smart grid research infrastructures tackling system-level research and technology development questions. This will contribute to structuring the European research area on a broad scale, ranging from integrating renewables, active distribution grids, ICT, and cyber-security solutions up to system-level testing. Hence, researchers from industry and academia will have greatly improved access to the best smart grid research infrastructures. This will strengthen the technical leadership of Europe in the energy domain.

Website & more info

More info: https://erigrid.eu.