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Information and education of the future electricity consumers: Experience from EcoGrid EU on Bornholm

This report analyses experience with customer communication and user involvement from the EcoGrid EU smart grid project based on Bornholm. The report is offering insight into  how it was possible to recruit and involve more than 10% of all Bornholm household customers (approx. 2,000) in the EcoGrid project. And to what extent EcoGrid EU experience is relevant outside Bornholm. Moreover, the report provides examples of experiences that can be followed as well as lessons that should not be followed in other demonstration projects, or in broader, nation-wide roll-out of smart grid.

You can download the English summary and the entire report (in Danish) here>>

 

English Summary	The full report (in Danish)

 

Gold medal for EcoGrid EU: Winner of the EUSEW Award 2016

EcoGrid EU is the winner of the prestigious EU Sustainable Energy Award 2016 (EUSEW16).
The project received the prize for the most outstanding and innovative energy project in the category Consumers. The prize were announced on 14 June – during the Sustainable Energy Week in Brussels.   

 

– We are very pleased - and we are very proud! The price is also going to the 2,000 Bornholm families who are the backbone of the EcoGrid EU project, said Betina Haagensen, Vice chairman of Østkraft (Bornholm Energi og Forsyning) when she received the award from EU Commissioner for Climate and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete.

 

The EcoGrid EU project was chosen from a list of 200 projects for clean, secure and efficient energy.

 The project Sustainable-energy transformation, Municipality of Pokupsko (Croatia) won the Public Sector award, while the Businesses Category prize went to Green Brewery Göss by Brau Union Österreich (Austria), which is the world’s first major carbon-neutral brewery using only renewable energy.

Read more here>>

 

 

EcoGrid 2.0

1st of January 2016 the EcoGrid 2.0 project had upstart. In EcoGrid 2.0 the focus is different problem definitions for the future electricity system. The project is based on chosen partners and equipment from the original Ecogrid project. For further information click here.
 

The Final EcoGrid EU reports

Three final EcoGrid EU reports present the overall demonstration results and the lessons learned from the field-test of the EcoGrid EU real-time market on Bornholm, including key recommendations for policy makers and stakeholders:

• EcoGrid EU: From Implementation to Demonstration (2015)
• EcoGrid EU: Overall Evaluation and Conclusions (2015)
• EcoGrid EU: Replication Roadmap (2015)

A brief summary is given in the brochure "EcoGrid EU: Findings and recommendations".

You can download the three EcoGrid EU reports and the brochure  here >> or click on the pictures below.

The overall conclusions of the EcoGrid EU evaluation team are:

• A real-time price signal can be used to activate flexible consumption
• There is a significant peak load reduction potential: The activation of flexible consumption with a five-minute real-time signal reduced the total peak load of the EcoGrid EU participants by approx. 670 kW or 1.2% of the peak load on Bornholm
• The flexible demand response can be forecasted – with some certainty – resulting in overall improved system efficiency
• Households, having equipment that controlled their heating system to respond automatically to price signals, accounted for 87% of the peak load reduction
• Involving the customers is the key to success. Personalised advice works best, but should be kept to a minimum due to the sheer volume in a national roll-out
• Standardised 2nd generation smart grid equipment is necessary

 

 160 people joined the final EcoGrid EU conference

On Tuesday September 15th the final EcoGrid EU results were presented at the EcoGrid EU conference. About 160 people joined the conference at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby. They listened to the experiences from the EcoGrid EU demonstration, project, which has come to an end after four and a half year.

«Despite of challenges and steep learning curve along the road, the  results of the demonstration are very satisfying» said Per Lund, Energinet.dk (the Danish Transmission System Operator). He was responsible for the overall evaluation of the demonstration project.  

 

160 participated at the final EcoGrid EU conference	IBM posters about the EcoGrid EU ICT architecture	The conference participants visit the "live" PowerLab DK
The EcoGrid EU lego model found its way from Bornholm to the conference at DTU-CEE	Siemens showed how the home automation system works	EcoGrid EU art decoration

The project coordinator Ove Grande from Sintef Energy Research was happy with the final results. He was also proud of the recognition the project has received such as the international nomination to the `Sustainia award´ for the best ICT solution (2012) and the `Honourable Mentioned´ prize (ISGAN/GSGF) for consumer engagement on Bornholm (2014).

Maja Bendtsen, Østkraft (host of the demonstration on Bornholm) referred to the final customer survey where 70% of the respondents (900 households) gave a positive rating to the overall EcoGrid EU project and that almost 80% would like to participate again in a project such as EcoGrid EU.

«In the current regulatory framework, incentives to have efficient system operation is too low», said Georgios Giannopoulos, ELIA, (System Operator in Belgium). He was responsible for the EcoGrid EU Roadmap and the recommendations to policy makers: «We need incentives for more efficient operation, this will improve utilization of the assets and postpone investments. Innovation is likely to result in more sophisticated and efficient operation. Smart network tariff structures should incentivize active consumers and system needs and cost of energy should be better communicated and understood by all stakeholders».

 

Find the conference material here>>