PES - Fullscale Rollout Of Novel Markets and Technologies to Provide Innovative grid services based on Energy Demand Response

Most of the the power grids are rather old, but the usage and the demands we set for them are changing rapidly. One way we experience this is in the need for vast reinvestments in grid infrastructure to cope with the now bi-directional flow of energy, and handling of the volatility in renewable energy sources. Another factor is that energy to a larger part is produced in a distributed manner, by small wind turbines, rooftop PV-systems at households, and small local batteries, that all contribute to the emerging digitalized power system as a whole. In the future power system, there will be a lot of small actors, all being able to provide services to the grid, both in production, and in flexibility and ancillary services. With today’s regulatory regime, small actors are often excluded from directly participating in the energy markets, i.e. as in bid-volumes for secondary and tertiary control are very high (usually 5 – 10 MW). Through EU projects like EMPOWER and INVADE, Smart Innovation Norway has worked to turn these small-scale consumers and prosumers into valuable assets for DSOs and power companies. FRONTIER aims to take this to a marketplace, where DSOs and TSOs together can make use of these services, to maximise the benefits for the grid. The key to success in the future grid, and the ultimate goal for FRONTIER, is to establish real-time seamless collaboration between the TSOs and DSOs, and also amongst different DSOs. Creating systems for simple resource sharing and assessment between different entities, will enable closer to optimal management of the grid, and prevent that several reserves are engaged to prevent criticalities, when in fact maybe only half would have been needed.