Winner
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Smart Energy Project |
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| Website | www.sjenergy.com www.poweringourfuture.ca/project-smart-energy | ||
| Saint John Energy’s Smart Energy Project is a $14 million project that will bring significant advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and IoT technologies to the local distribution grid.
The objectives of the Project are to reduce peak demands on the grid, lower purchased power costs, and reduce environmental emissions. The Smart Energy Project deploys a suite of embedded energy devices coupled with secure digital communications systems, advanced control technologies, and developed algorithms to predict and manage the peak loads on the grid. The integrated system consists of three main components:
The Smart Energy Assets include utility-scale assets – batteries, generators, and CVR transformers plus embedded controllable residential devices – smart water heaters, heat pumps, thermal and electrical storage, and EV chargers. The Smart Control Center is a state-of-the-art SCADA system that communicates in real-time with all of the embedded field devices. The communications include protocols for the secure exchange of data from the IoT devices to the controls software. The Integrated System Manager leverages artificial intelligence along with the correlation of system data and weather data to accurately predict peaks and valleys in energy consumption. The machine-learned predictability of the load shape, coupled with machine-learned response behavior from the wide variety of smart energy assets allow the system to be optimized in real-time. A dispatching algorithm considers the unique value contribution of each available energy resource. Saint John Energy’s purchased power costs will be decreased as energy is billed at an energy charge plus a monthly peak demand charge. The peak demand charge is among the highest in Canada and represents one-third of the total purchased power costs. The management of peak demand will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the province of New Brunswick as peak energy production is powered by fossil fuels and produces twice as much carbon emissions than off-peak energy production. This integrated system will allow Saint John Energy to deploy more smart energy assets, thereby future-proofing the distribution grid while lowering costs, improving reliability, and bolstering efficiency. It will also allow large-scale renewable energy generation to be added to the grid. |
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Runner-up
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Eu-Sysflex German Demonstration |
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| Website | https://eu-sysflex.com/ https://www.mitnetz-strom.de/ | |||||
| The German demonstrator in the grid area of MITNETZ STROM is designed to show how flexibilities from decentralized power generation can be provided from the high-voltage grid to the transmission system operator without negatively affecting the distribution grid. On the one hand, a new process to include renewable energy plants in both congestion management and voltage control is being demonstrated. On the other hand, the necessary data exchange processes and data pathways are described and being tested. It is also planned to link the data on weather and load forecasts with the grid data in order to better anticipate and plan for grid bottlenecks. With this, the demonstrator enables a safe, secure, and efficient grid operation in an energy system with a high share of volatile renewable energy sources.
Since January 25th, the demonstrator manages more than a hundred wind and PV plants with a combined installed capacity of about 5 gigawatts. “We are eagerly awaiting special weather situations that could pose a challenge to the grid, such as strong winds, to test the solution’s functionality in real grid situations and to prove its value for our system operation,” explains Maik Staudt, demo leader at MITNETZ STROM. With the German government aiming for a 65 percent share of renewables by 2030, the results of EU-SysFlex are also of great importance for both the German energy market and are key developments for E.ON’s larger flexibility management strategy. Together with 33 partners from 15 European countries – including TSOs, DSOs, technology providers, aggregators, consulting firms, and universities and research institutions – E.ON and MITNETZ STROM participate in this unique showcase project. EU-SysFlex was launched in November 2017 and will end in October 2021. The project is funded with €20.5 million from the EU’s Horizon 2020 framework program for research and innovation. |
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