The KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence (CoE) is participating in an important EU research and innovation project entitled “3DMicroGrid”.
The main objective of this project is to capitalize on the availability of local and large renewable energy resources and adapt them for solutions to sustainability in terms of electric power demand and supply. It will facilitate the design, development and demonstration of a future-proof active smart micro-grid system as well as to integrate and optimize multiple small to medium sized energy sources and loads.
3DMicroGrid will also assess other studies related to the establishment and justification of a smart micro-grid while utilizing various equipment, sensors, meters, hardware, and software for measuring, monitoring and analyzing the required data to undertake the study.
Moreover, different power management strategies will be envisaged, considering load/demand forecasting; renewable energy generation forecasting, integration with weather sensors; prioritizing loads and exercising the option of demand response; optimal scheduling of the distributed generation units, intelligent control of resource for smooth transitioning between grid-connected and autonomous operation mode; and exercising the option of storage technology utilization of appropriate size.
The benefits inherent to Micro-Grids are improved power quality, reduced transmission losses and carbon emissions, localized operation and control, robustness and resilience owing to diverse energy sources, optimal load scheduling, possibility to incorporate energy management systems, better use of renewable energy sources and less dependency on external suppliers of energy and fuel.
Micro-grids allow the local community to take ownership of the generation of energy, as community members may very well host PVs and wind turbines which feed the Micro-Grid from which the community draws its energy needs.
The state-of-the-art in Micro-Grid efficient operation and control is based upon methodologies and strategies for smart energy management and control, that take into account uncertainties related to the forecasted values for load demand and output power of wind, photovoltaic units, and market price, in order to coordinate power forecasting, as well as energy storage and energy exchanging forecasting, and then make educated short-term schedules to minimize total operation cost.
The project partnership is multidisciplinary, with participation of ten different organizations, from Jordan, Malta, Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Germany and Algeria. The partnership combines the expertise of Research Institutions, Universities and power systems consultancy firms.
Project’s website: http://www.3dmicrogrid.com/
The project is funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Program under the ERANETMED scheme.
