The EcoGrid 2.0 project's vision is to develop, test and demonstrate an electricity market for flexibility, that meets the customers' daily needs and make it easy to choose eco-friendly and cost efficient energy solutions which benefits the environment, costumers and industry.
EcoGrid 2.0 was kicked-off this morning at DTU Elektro and its vision is clear: to develop an energy market for flexibility that can be broken down into packages of products and services the customers can choose among. Just like costumers do, when they buy a mobile subscription. In the long run the model should be exported and rolled-out in other EU-counties.
EcoGrid 2.0 is one of the world's largest smart energy projects. It builds on the recently completed EcoGrid EU project and will benefit from the extensive infrastructure in form of installed smart grid equipment in 1.000 households on Bornholm.
Denmark will be a pioneer country
Denmark is already a vanguard in Europe when it comes to smart energy solutions. In 2014 Denmark exported energy technology for 74 billion Danish Kroner. Our strength lays in research and development and not to the same extend in demonstration, explains Thea Larsen, Chair of EUDP (who has granted the project half of the 98 million Danish Kroner) at the Kick-off meeting. She believes the EcoGrid 2.0 project could be a means to promote Denmark as a strong pioneer country regarding demonstration of full scale smart energy solutions.
To make Bornholm a fully developed, full scale demonstration platform in 3,5 years mapping the users behavior and tailoring different solutions that will satisfy their needs is the key issue. EcoGrid 2.0 will therefor make interviews with the users carried out by anthropologists, explains Jørgen S. Christiansen, Chair of EcoGrid consortium.
"We need to find out what the costumers want and wrap those needs and wishes into packages that the energy suppliers can match," he says.
A feel-good-way of using energy
An example of a product or a service could be that the user allows the energy supplier to control part of his electricity consumption. Whenever the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine, the supplier will turn off the heat in the house of the user until the temperature drops to 23 degrees Celsius and then turn it on again when the temperature drops below that point. The supplier can also choose to turn up the heat a bit when prices are low at night, when few people use electricity or if the wind starts blowing again or the sun suddenly is out, Lars Goldschmidt explains. He is Chair of Bornholms Energi & Forsygning and a participant in the experiment himself.
The gain for the user is a bit of money spared, but most of all he might get the feeling of being a decent and eco-friendly person, without a lot of effort. The gain for the energy supplier is not to sell energy to cheap, when there is an abundance of energy available and not to buy expensive energy abroad, when supplies are low, the discussion panel at the Kick-off event agrees. The panel consists of Lars Goldschmidt, Bornholms Energi & Forsygning, Steen Frandsen, Miljø og Teknik, Bornholms kommune and Jacob Østergaard, Center for Electric Power and Energy, DTU Elektro.
"We do not get paid to carry our used jars and bottles to one of these special containers for recycling glass, but it gives us a kind of satisfaction anyway. It is that feeling, we must bring forth in the users to motivate them to keep taking active part in a sustainable energy system and the project," Jacob Østergaard says.
The moderator wrapped up the event with the words: "The users are motivated, we have the platform, the funding and the human resources - so let us take off!"
www.eu-ecogrid.net