E.DSO maps digitalised energy system transformation in new whitepaper
A roadmap on the metering value chain is among actions proposed by E.DSO in a new white paper for a decentralised and digitalised energy system in Europe.
Aspects that should be incorporated include the role of the existing smart meter, the use of relevant submeter data, the ability to communicate control signals, the distributed computing capacity and interoperable solutions and the ability to communicate with controlling equipment such as a home energy management system and other energy-relevant appliances.
A decentralised energy system, in which not only energy generation is decentralised, but also data processing is ensured, is unavoidable, says E.DSO in a new white paper, pointing to the need for more data access and data processing capabilities, also in real time for balancing and congestion management.
“The volumes of data produced by smart devices are exponentially increasing. Making use of these amounts of data bears a huge value potential. One must bear in mind that energy data is not only valuable to the energy sector, but across many other sectors of the economy. The success of actions is enhanced by their ability to be interoperable across many different sectors.”
Have you read?
Enlit Europe 2022 Hubs: Digitalisation
Grid infrastructure, digitalisation, political will top barriers to Europe’s energy transition – report
The white paper follows a joint workshop of E.DSO with the European Commission’s DG ENER and DG CONNECT in November 2022, following the publication of the energy sector digitalisation action plan.
Arising out of this event, E.DSO has identified several of the most pressing actions for DSOs to address the opportunities and barriers faced by the sector in the digital and energy transformations.
One of these is the upcoming Energy Data Space for exchanging and sharing data. The DSOs will strongly cooperate with TSOs and other actors to deliver a vision on the governance and setting up of the energy data space, with E.DSO coming forward with a proposal in the upcoming Data for Energy taskforce.
Another is the market for flexibility. While the market is preparing for delivering flexibility to DSOs for mitigating congestion and keeping the system in balance, a key requirement is that DSOs can communicate their flexibility markets needs on a regular basis identifying where, when and to what extent they expect congestion in their LV, MV and HV grids.
To that end, DSOs should also have access to data coming from the edge and would develop short-medium-long term load forecasting and predictive load flow capabilities for their LV, MV and HV grids for the day ahead and intraday time frame in 15 minute granularity.
With digital technologies and the standards that underpin them driving the future energy system, DSOs are willing to define and implement in 2023/2024 data interoperability in close cooperation with stakeholders in the markets and standardisation bodies.
DSOs also will engage with the national/EU data protection authorities in developing a code of conduct for using smart meter and edge data for LV/MV/HV grid management purposes.
Last but not least, the DSOs need support from national regulatory authorities with the design of appropriate opex incentives in legislation to drive digitalisation forward, E.DSO states.
The increased share of digital solutions in grid operation will inevitably increase the opex share of the DSOs’ investments and solutions such as the technical enabling of flexibility measures, operationalisation of data hubs, backend-systems for sensors monitoring grid operation, AI systems supporting the analysis of grid state, etc. all need to be addressed in the investment schemes as well.
