FLEXICIENCY newsletter – June 2015 – Project kick-off
At a glance
FLEXICIENCY was launched earlier this year by a consortium encompassing 18 partners covering 10 EU member states. The project consortium is led by Enel Distribuzione.
The objective of FLEXICIENCY is to demonstrate that the deployment of novel services in the electricity retail markets can be accelerated thanks to an open European market place based on standardised interactions among electricity stakeholders.
New, innovative energy services will be provided within a framework where “real-time” metering data, made available by DSOs, can be exchanged with and among energy market players, thus offering services for advanced monitoring, local control and flexible aggregation of loads – an approach that would contribute to the uptake of easy and quick demand response solutions. FLEXICIENCY will create a pan-European platform to support the development of new services for the development of the electricity retail markets.
This virtual ICT environment will allow to:
– Link platforms of different players (DSOs and service providers) to offer and manage services;
– Receive/submit data/service requests;
– Readdress requests to the platforms where data, service modules, software, tools, etc. are located;
– Keep data of registered players and approved applications only. Physical data transfer (metering data, software, tools, etc.) is performed by point to point connections: i.e. from DSO to/from service platform and from service platform to service platform;
Four major Distribution System Operators located in Italy, France, Spain and Sweden, with smart metering infrastructure in place, together with electricity retailers, aggregators, software providers, research organisations and one large consumer, propose four large-scale demonstrations with real customers to demonstrate novel services in the electricity retail markets ranging from advanced monitoring to local energy control and flexibility services based on the provision of “real time” data by DSOs. A fifth demonstration will be run by Verbund, as a new comer in the Austrian electricity retail market, where smart metering has not been rolled out yet, thus covering different conditions and allowing to draw insights on existing barriers towards energy efficiency service provisions.
The open, virtual market place created by FLEXICIENCY
The European market place is a virtual ICT environment that will be developed during the FLEXICIENCY project in order to catalyse the interactions between all the relevant stakeholders in an open and standardised way. It will encourage a cross-country and cross-player access to innovative energy services. This virtual ICT environment will foster the birth and growth of new electricity retail economic models throughout EU28, which will in turn increase in the future the overall electricity system flexibility, while maximising energy efficiency across Europe.
Join the Stakeholder Community!
The project partners are establishing a stakeholder community composed of relevant and committed market players of various types to collaborate closely with on the project. The project partners welcome contributions and new stakeholders to FLEXICIENCY. Joining the stakeholder community is on a non-binding, complimentary and voluntary basis.
Have your say in opening up a market for services by:
– Assessing and evaluating the research findings of the project
– Using the virtual market place to test how it could be exploited in your country
– Knowledge sharing and network
– Seising the opportunity to exploit the project to develop new services, business models & opportunities
– Taking the opportunity to gain improved market access
To hear more & join the stakeholder group, please get in touch!
Contact information
Project Coordinator
Mr Jon Stromsather
+39 06 8305 9462
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement n° 646482
Best regards,
The FLEXICIENCY Consortium
