Project partners

Introduction

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd is the leading research and technology company in the Nordic countries. VTT has a national mandate in Finland. We use our research and knowledge to provide expert services for our domestic and international customers and partners. We serve both private and public sectors.

We have 73 years’ experience supporting our clients’ growth with top-level research and science-based results.

We develop new smart technologies, profitable solutions and innovative services. We cooperate with our customers to produce technology for business and build success and well-being for the benefit of society.

We use 4,000,000 hours of brainpower a year to develop new technological solutions. The benefit you gain from this spearhead research comes when we work with you to create new products, production processes, methods, and services. VTT ensures efficient utilisation of science and technology with the aid of broad international cooperation and networking.

VTT has been granted an ISO9001:2008 certificate, and our environmental system is certified in accordance with ISO14001:2004. VTT is part of Finland’s innovation system and operates under the mandate of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy.

The project

VTT is the project coordinator. VTT also leads the technology integration and cooperation development (in WP3) and contribute to the development of ICT as supporting service (WP4), and support the work on innovation integration (WP2), extrapolation (WP7), the business model development and policy and market framework analysis (WP8) and impact creation (WP9).

The team

Main contact

Mia Ala-Juusela, Senior Scientist

“STORY for me is an important step on the way towards 100 % renewable energy system.”

Visit VTT

photo: Pekka Savolainen, Riku Pasonen, Mia Ala-Juusela, Timo Korvola, Rinat Abdurafikov and Francesco Reda

Introduction

The National Renewable Energy Centre (CENER) is a technology centre, specialized in applied research and in the development and promotion of renewable energies through six technical departments: Wind Power, Solar Thermal Energy, Photovoltaic Solar Energy, Biomass Energy, Energy in Buildings and Renewable Energy Grid Integration.

CENER provides services in:

• Development of technology through R&D&I projects, promoting the generation, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge for the industrial sector.
• Highly skilled technical assistance and services for component testing and certification.
• Drafting of reports as well as technical and economic feasibility studies

CENER is involved in STORY through the Grid Integration Department (IRE). This department is devoted to the increase and improvement of Renewable Energies integration into the grid. In that way, IRE Department analyses renewable technologies and grids to identify and solve the challenges that energy system has to face to integrate high shares of RES into the grid by means of theoretic studies via simulations and field tests. The goal is to propose measures, including energy storage systems, to appropriately manage the system.

IRE is structured in two different areas, Grid Integration Area and Energy Storage Area and our main activities on the first area are related to Distributed Generation Systems and Smart Grids, Design and development of Microgrids, Power flow studies in static and dynamic regime of the grids, performance of energy systems faced to transitory phenomena such as voltage dips, etc. The activities regarding energy storage focus on Testing and Characterization of Energy Storage Systems, Technical-economical feasibility studies and Design of ESS plants with Renewables and Business Models for different ESS applications, Modeling and Simulation, etc.

The project

As a technological centre, CENER contributes to the project STORY WP primarily on the technical workpackages WP3, WP4, WP5, WP6, WP7 and to the business models development in WP8. Given its experience in distributed generation systems and microgrids that incorporate energy storage systems, its main task is to support the Spanish company EXKAL in the design and installation of the demonstration plant to be implanted in Navarra (Spain).

The purpose of this plant is to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of using energy storage associated with photovoltaics to reduce the peak demand charge of a manufacturing plant in an industrial environment. This charge in Spain can reach up to 60% of the electricity bill so the savings from the reduction can lead to effective business model for the tandem PV + storage.

CENER helps in the design of the plant, defining the communication and control systems, types and sizes of the most appropriate energy storage systems, architecture of the pilot plant, etc., and in the development of business models through the market and regulation framework knowledge in Spain.

CENER is also the leader of WP6 “Monitoring and Evaluation” whose main objective is to identify the KPIs of energy storage systems on demo plants and determine their contribution to the overall cost of the systems in order to optimize monitoring systems, avoid duplication and minimize costs.

The team

Main contact

Monica Aguado, Renewable Energy Grid Integration Director

“STORY for me is a motivating project to promote energy storage among end-users in an easy, amusing and active way.”

Visit CENER

Photo – from left to right: Miguel Angel Sicilia, Mikel Santamaria, David Rivas, Konstantina Mentesidi, Sindia Casado, Raquel Garde, Gabriel Garcia

Second photo also: Asun Pegneguy

Introduction

Beneens en Zonen BVBA is a medium sized company active in different aspects of the construction sector and specialised in turn-key projects in the non-residential sector (commercial buildings, office buildings and medical offices). The company started in 1935 as a small 1-person joinery. A steady growth ever since has led to an annual turnover of 23 million Euro.

Today, Beneens has an ultramodern production facility and employs 120 people. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one of the key principles of Beneens. Besides profit, people and environmental consciousness are decisive parameters in strategic decisions. The people factor, achieving a healthy work-life balance and creating an atmosphere of respect for each other and for the client ensure the employees deliver up to the highest quality. The Planet-aspect is given more and more attention. A waste separation facility, installed in 2005, is revolutionary in the sector of construction.

The project

The company is going to invest in a new wood fired boiler (1.6 MW) and has the option to collect waste wood from other companies. Different options to valorize the heat are going to be implemented:

• Heating of current offices, workshop and painting room
• Heat delivery to the new office of Beneens by a district heating network
• Heat delivery to a new built SME-zone with offices and workshops by a district heating network in the future
• Heat delivery to an ORC installation to produce electricity (about 90 kWe) and low grade heat for office heating.

In order to increase flexibility of the system thermal energy storage based on a hot water storage tanks are added.

The innovative aspects of the Beneens demo in the STORY project are:

• Efficiency enhancement and active control of ORC through the use of thermal storage
• State of charge estimation of thermal energy storage with limited sensors
• Potential optimization of the thermal grid through double use in intervals
• the use of local batteries to reduce congestion and peak demand on the private grid (if economically feasible)

The team

Main contact

Joeri Beneens, Technical Director

“STORY for me is a small SME thinking big ….”

Visit Beneens

Photo – from left to right: Dirk Boeckx, Joeri Beneens

Introduction

BaseN was established in 2001 with headquarters in Finland. From the start BaseN Platform was designed to provide extremely scalable and fault-tolerant network and service management systems for telecom operators and large multinational enterprises, and is now positioning itself as a Global Internet of Things (IoT) Operator enabling the transformation from product to service business among any industry. Customer base includes telecommunications and ISP, energy, manufacturing and other heavy industries in addition to new players evolving from product sales into digital services.

BaseN’s industrial-strength Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) suite sets the standard for the measurement, monitoring, storage, analysis, display and reporting of information in public and private infrastructures. The BaseN Platform, powered by advanced grid computing technologies, provides customers of all sizes with an extraordinarily reliable and cost-effective operating environment capable of handling large amounts of data in near real-time.

The project

BaseN’s main role in the STORY-project is to gather the measurement data (mainly  KPIs identified in the project) from various installation sites and to act as a data aggregator providing the measurement data for project research purposes. Every site will provide data from different sensors with differing frequencies, so BaseN platform is used to unify all these datastreams  to standard format time series.

BaseN also has a strong experience in network technologies, data security and sensor/hardware interfacing and will participate in the planning and implementation of the ICT platform and sensoring implementation in the installation sites.

The team

Main Contact

Topi Mikkola, Software Engineer

“Story for me is about making renewable energy economically feasible everywhere.”

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Photo – from left to right: Luis Colorado, Corina Maiwald, Topi Mikkola

Introduction

The B9 Energy group was created in 1992 with the specific purpose of developing renewable energy projects. B9 Energy is headquartered in carbon neutral offices in Northern Ireland, UK and has a global reach. The B9 Energy group is a family of companies that include B9 Operation & Maintenance, B9 Organic Energy, B9 Solutions and B9 Energy Storage.

B9 Energy Storage was set up to develop opportunities within the Energy Storage sector. The electricity grid infrastructure within Northern Ireland is struggling to cope with the number of renewable generators that wish to connect and curtailment of wind energy is already a major concern. Energy Storage can help to alleviate many of these issues.

B9’s heritage in the renewable energy sector, deep knowledge and understanding of legislation and ability to spot viable future technologies enables B9 Energy, as environmental entrepreneurs, to view the wider landscape of opportunity offered by the Age of Sustainability.

B9 Energy’s constitution is built around the three foundation stones of environmental best practice, social responsibility and sustainable business. We see business as a Force for Good.

The project

Future energy grids in Europe will have an increased share of highly variable renewables causing bi-directional energy flows within the existing networks. As this happens, a growing use of storage will help to increase security of supply, grid stability and allow a greater share of our energy to come from renewable sources. STORY will show how new cutting edge technologies and innovative business models can be developed from the ground up that will shape the future landscape of our global Energy Infrastructure.

STORY will involve conducting 8 demonstration projects across Europe each with different storage concepts and technologies. The B9 Energy element will focus on the challenges of using a compressed air storage system to increase penetration of PV solar and other renewables within the local grid network. The demonstration will show the practical as well as the socio-economic aspects of using energy storage to help facilitate connection of RES (Renewable Energy Sources) within the Northern Ireland region.

The team

Main contact

David Surplus, Director

“STORY for us is an ideal opportunity to create high profile demonstration and test sites of the latest cutting-edge Energy Storage technologies that will help to form the electricity grid of the future.”

Visit B9 Energy Storage Ltd.

Photo – from left to right: Alvaro Martinez, David Surplus, Michael Harper, John Harrison

Introduction

Actility is an industry leader in LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) large scale infrastructure with ThingPark®, the new generation standard-based M2M communication platform. Actility’s ThingPark Wireless® network provides long-range coverage for low-power sensors used in SmartCity, SmartBuilding and SmartFactory applications. Actility also provides the ThingPark Cloud which provides big data storage for sensor data and exposes sensor function through an open API allowing developers to provide vertical applications on top of rolled out sensors. To help vendors transform their sensors, Actility provides the ThingPark IoT platform which include embedded software solutions and cloud solutions to help devices connect to innovative applications. Actility is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance: the largest, most powerful standards-based effort to enable the Internet of Things (IoT).

The project

Actility will participate in exchanging experiences on IT communication architectures & building energy models. These will be deployed in residential storage demonstration projects in existing houses in Oud-Heverlee, Belgium.

Actility will work closely with storage solution providers as to make the IT integration & communication seamless and as generic as possible.

Whilst doing so we hope to build some tangible solutions stimulating future large scale deployment of storage technologies.

The team

Main contact

Mike Mulica, CEO

“STORY for me is proving that storage can play a crucial role within a Demand Response context. Deployment of breakthrough IoT LoRa radio technology & energy modelling tools for controlling storage systems within live demonstration projects. It is exciting to deploy the new solutions of the future together with other expert partners.”

Visit Actility

Photo – from left to right: Joeri Uyttendaele, Arnout Aertgeerts, Hugues Bellaches, Arnaud Latiers, Luc Boschmans, Kurt Debacquer

Introduction

Elektro Gorenjska d.d. is a Slovene power distribution company (DSO) providing core services to approximately 10% of Slovenian territory in the North-Western part of Slovenia. The distribution network entails 15 110/20 kV transformer stations, nearly 1400 MV/LV transformer stations and total of 5300 km of 0.4 kV to 110 kV networks. It provides supply to approximately 88000 customers, more than 18% of the transported energy is produced in small distributed renewable resources connected to the distribution network.

Elektro Gorenjska Group consists of the controlling company Elektro Gorenjska d.d., and Gorenjske elektrarne d.o.o. as controlled company, which is in 100 % ownership of the controlling company, and associated company Soenergetika, where Gorenjske elektrarne has 25 percent share. None of the companies in the group has any subsidiaries.

Management of the controlled companies is implemented directly on the basis of the founder’s decision, and controlled companie has not got a supervisory board.

Elektro Gorenjska group is constantly striving for development, innovation and environmental efficiency and friendliness. Group is a holder of four quality standards ISO 9001, ISO14001, BS OHSAS 18001 and ISO 27000, which are recertified every year. Since 2011 Elektro Gorenjska Company has been a holder of the Family-friendly company certificate. It participates in processes of business excellence (PRSPO) and is the only distribution company that received the highest national award for business excellence in Slovenia for year 2012. Quality services and activities, we have been implementing for 50 years, now became even more obvious with arrival of competition. Undisturbed, reliable and quality supply of electricity is in the first place.

Elektro Gorenjska Company follows and actively participates in development projects, which represent the driver of the future, definitely including development of SMART GRIDS and other support activities. In year 2013 Elektro Gorenjska successfully completed its three-year international project HiperDNO and in 2016 another international research project called INCREASE (Increasing the penetration of renewable energy sources in the distribution grid by developing control strategies and using ancillary services).

Besides STORY, Elektro Gorenjska actively contributes to another two H2020 project. First one, EASY-RES (Enable Ancillary Services By Renewable Energy Sources) explores the future ancillary services provided by increasing number of renewables, and second, TDX-ASSIST (Coordination of Transmission and Distribution data eXchanges for renewables integration in the European marketplace through Advanced, Scalable and Secure ICT Systems and Tools) establishes future communication standards required for future mutual energy system support.

The project

Among multiple STORY demonstrations, EG will provide two demo sites. Demonstration of flexible and robust use of medium scale storage unit connected to low voltage residential grid and industrial grid is the main purpose of EG project activities. A variety of project goals will be tested as follows:

• Demonstration of the flexibility and robustness of the large scale storage unit
• Ease of integration in existing infrastructure (including interoperability)
• Control and battery management system and its cooperation with the devices in the system
• A high degree of transformer station self sufficiency
• Ensuring maximum efficiency in decentralised energy production
• Potential in supporting the regime of the PV production
• Impact on efficiency (and thus return of investment) of complete system
• High degree of self-sufficiency of battery combination and PV production
• Peak demand control within the daily load diagram
• Reduction of line congestion

Besides above mentioned activities, EG will additionally take an active part in different WP, contributing mostly in improvement of flexibility and robustness of large scale battery, ICT definitions and others.

The team

Main contact

Marjan Jerele, Assistant Executive Director

“Story for me is another exciting challenge.”

Visit Elektro Gorenjska

Photo – from left to right: Marjan Jerele, Damjan Prašnikar, Luka Močnik, Tomaž Mavec, Edvard Košnjek

Introduction

• 24/05/2017 Start-up of the facility by SAFT and CENER, with the support of EXKAL´s personnel
  The system is running without remarkable problems since the start-up
• The original target application was focused on a peak shaving approach according to a pre-calculated threshold to reduce the demand charge
• 05/2017-05/2018, the consumption of the factory had decreased due to a restructuring, so we adapted the strategy, also focusing it on reducing the energy charge
• 06/2018, 1 punching machine was installed (added one to the 2 punching machines that were working so far), 4 new folding machines were installed in EXKAL, so this production changes made the project much more useful and interesting and we adapted our strategy to them.
• 19/09/2018 , SAFT (batteries’ manufacturer) charges a new firmware and software modifications on the batteries as part of their guaranty system.
• 10/2018 a new strategy will be charged (the last step of the our evolution plan), based on a new input, the charge of the batteries from the grid during the cheapest periods of energy during the day and using this energy during the most expensive periods.
• EXKAL was born in 2005, combining the ideas of a selected group of professional experts, promoting the change and innovation, and with the will of leading it.
• EXKAL offers a great range of refrigerated cabinets and cold rooms that contribute to sustainability; designed and produced thinking on the optimum food conservation and exposition, with innovative solutions and oriented to Low Cycle Cost.
• Cabinets are First class, high energetic efficiency and produced with ecological materials, easily recoverable and recyclable, under ecodesigns and environmental respect.
• Nowadays, EXKAL has a turnover of 25 million euro and an increasing international presence including factories in Europe, South America and China among others.
• EXKAL believes in innovation, finishing 4 Technological Innovation projects. One of them, certified as EUREKA project. At the moment we are working on 3 new innovation projects, all of them collaborating with important Companies, Technological Centers and prestigious Universities. One of them in collaboration with a Chinese company (CHINEKA project) another one with Technological Centers and European companies (EUROSTARS project).

The project

EXKAL Demonstration on STORY is based on a storage system with Ion- Lithium battery, for energy produced from an existing Photovoltaic Facility of 112,70 kWp installed on the roof of the factory, and focus on several targets:

• Reduce peak power of the energy bill for industrial sector combining storage/batteries with PV integration.
• Reduce energy factor of the energy bill by the consumption of energy stored on batteries for consumption during the most expensive tariff period of the day.
• Taking an starting point for this demonstration:
• A Power demand of 800 kW, 280 kW per tariff period
• Storage of 50 kW, 200 kWh with Ion- Lithium battery

The team

Main Contact

Clemente López Gilardi, Project Manager

“STORY for me is future! It is a great opportunity to show that the storage of energy is a reality that has already arrived, and will change our future.”

Visit EXKAL

Introduction

JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft GmbH (JR) with approximately 450 employees and 7 research units is one of the focal points of scientific research in Austria. As a partner in innovation for business enterprises and political decision-makers this research company focuses an applied research and development in important key technologies.

The competences comprise technological, economical, ecological and social aspects of various energy technologies and systems including agricultural and forest land use. Activities focus on technologies and techniques in the fields of renewable energy such as biomass, combustion control systems development and improvement of biomass-fired heating plants, development of co-generation plants for decentralized application in biomass furnaces, tri-generation, flue gas condensation, reduction of NOx emissions from biomass combustion. The group has also experience in the evaluation of different technologies in respect to their sustainability (life-cycle analysis), stakeholder involvement and assessment of social impacts of technologies, and project management in national and international funded undertakings (e.g. INCREASE, DRIVE4EU, APRAISE, BETTER, AMAZALERT, POCACITO within the EU framework programs) as well as policy design and evaluation of policies aiming to combat climate change and environmental pollution (e.g. advice in the fields of emissions trading and flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol).

The DIGITAL Institute for Information and Communication Technologies specialises in web technologies, image, video, acoustic signal processing together with remote sensing, communication and human factors technologies. These technologies are implemented in hardware and software development and application oriented solutions using scientifically state-of-the-art methods.
The business area security and safety relevant applications focuses on methods and technologies for privacy protection and the protection of data and resources against cyber attacks. We offer expertise in security measures (best practise, standards, security models) for cyber attack mitigation, network intelligence and secure programming. Our algorithms analysing Big (smart) data, sensor data or log files are based on machine learning, rule based and statistical methods.

The project

A main task of JOANNEUM RESEARCH in STORY is the overall coordination of the demonstrations to ensure optimal information exchange between the different demonstrations as well as other project tasks linked to the demonstration activities.

Furthermore JOANNEUM RESEARCH performs a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the demonstrated storage technologies and investigates environmental and social effects for selected large scale storage integration scenarios in Europe.

JOANNEUM RESEARCH will contribute on security and privacy aspects of data exchange within the complex interconnecting STORY demonstrator systems. In particular, we are responsible for setting up adequate ICT security measures, which are in balance between effort, benefit and safety.

In terms of impact creation JOANNEUM RESEARCH participates mainly through active presentations at relevant fairs, conferences and project events and supports information exchange with other HORIZON2020 projects.

The team

Main contact

Andreas Tuerk, Senior Researcher

“STORY for me is a project that enables the implementation of visions for our future energy system.”

Visit JOANNEUM RESEARCH

Photo – from left to right/first row: Hannes Schwaiger, Johanna Pucker // 2nd row: Gerfried Jungmeier, Kurt Könighofer, Andreas Tuerk, Heribert Vallant

Introduction

Lopta Film produces advertisements, feature films, and audio-visual media of highest standards, adaptable for any given way of distribution.

Lopta Film offers tailor made communication solutions for cases and causes.

Lopta Film combines the entire spectrum of creative media production under one roof: from concept, design, shooting and animation, visual effects, editing and finishing to film production.

Therefore Lopta Film provides a unique in-house workflow, from first ideas to the final product.

Lopta Film has also successfully expanded its expertise in presenting energy issues,  such as energy storage and off-shore windparks.

The project

Lopta Film is responsible for the whole communication of the project STORY. The main task is to translate the technical content towards a broader public.

Lopta Film develops the communication style which includes the whole STORY branding, website and all communication content such flyers, brochures and so on.

Furthermore Lopta Film is responsible for all communication channels (website, Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn).

All STORY movies are developed, shot and produced by Lopta Film.

The team

Main contact

Adrian Topol, Founder + Managing Director

“STORY for us is a great challenge to translate the energy storage future in moving pictures. ”

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Photo – from left to right: Judith Hoersch, Adrian Topol, Sarah Wolf

Introduction

Prospex Institute (PI), a non-profit organization, aims to promote the participation of citizens and stakeholders in societally relevant decision-making dialogue and processes. PI employs top professionals with extensive expertise in engaging broad stakeholder groups, often in multi-cultural and multi-sectorial workshop formats. PI builds its reputation on its unique competences in stakeholder engagement and consultation, and through a wide array of participatory methodologies.

Prospex Institute’s experts have worked extensively for public organisations, businesses and civil society around the world on a broad range of issues and across sectors, such as in innovation, technology, energy, education, environment, health, construction, ICT and transport. PI in that sense has a long track record and high-level experience in the identification of stakeholders, as well as in the design and facilitation of interactive processes, including workshops, meetings and conferences.

The project

Prospex Institute is involved in multiple work packages and plays an important role in STORY’s stakeholder engagement, knowledge sharing within STORY between partners, and setting the stage for constructive collaboration across Horizon2020 projects.

PI’s main activities lie firstly in designing and facilitating the European and national stakeholder workshops, focusing on market, policy, regulatory and consumer issues that have a direct influence on the roll-out of storage and smart grids in a European setting. PI’s method for mapping and selecting stakeholders, will allow for a varied representation of critical stakeholders from key sectors, including from business, policy and civil society. In combination with PI’s expertise in participatory processes, these interactive workshops will enable rich and varied inputs, identifying opportunities for new storage concepts and smart grid developments, the barriers this sector faces and the critical actions required to overcome them.

In addition, PI will enable and facilitate a cross-project dialogue between several Horizon2020 projects focusing on energy storage and smart grids, providing a forum for knowledge sharing in order to developed shared recommendations.

The team

Main contact

Stefan Haenen, Junior Researcher/Consultant

“STORY for me is a dialogue on the energy grid of the future.”

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Photo – from left to right: Stefan Haenen, Valérie Boiten, Martin Watson

Introduction

UC Leuven-Limburg is a university college in Leuven, Belgium. It is part of the KU Leuven Association. It offers a wide range of education for the professional bachelor degree, including management, healthcare, teaching and technology. The technology degrees include ICT and energy.

Research at UC Leuven-Limburg focuses on the transfer of academic research results and knowledge into society through the courses for the bachelor students and through participation in research and innovation projects. The research focuses on addressing real-world problems and challenges, mainly of the partners in collaborative research, and it remains largely unimpeded by the requirements for academic publication.

The project

UC Leuven-Limburg participates through its ICT research team. Its main responsibility is concerned with in-depth interoperability. This involves the transfer and application of academic research results that bring insight into the mechanisms that prevent interoperability efforts from achieving high performance (i.e. approximating what would be possible with an integrated implementation of the overall system from scratch). This academic research also provides solutions – design guidelines and principles, a reference architecture and architectural patterns – to develop ‘’interoperability-ready’’ systems and solutions that go beyond superficial interconnections and data exchange.

Moreover, UC Leuven-Limburg participates in the demonstrator developments in Belgium. This includes a demonstrator in an industrial setting and a demonstrator in a (multi-) home setting. UC Leuven-Limburg contributes software development expertise in these demonstration site developments.

The team

Main contact

Paul Valckenaers

“STORY for me is a splendid opportunity to demonstrate and communicate how to design for the unexpected, resulting in an in-depth interoperation mode that approaches the performance of an integrated from-scratch design.”

Visit UC Leuven-Limburg

Visit KU Leuven Association

Photo: Paul Valckenaers

Introduction

UL, Faculty of Electrical Engineering is the leading research institution in Slovenia on power systems, renewables integration and smart grids.

University of Ljubljana is a public autonomous educational, scientific research and artistic institution of higher education with a very rich tradition. It is the oldest and the biggest university in Slovenia. It was established in 1919 and it encompasses 26 full members (3 art academies and 23 faculties) and 3 associated members (National University Library, University of Ljubljana Central Technical Library, University of Ljubljana Innovation-Development Institute). UL is also very active in international R&D programs: in the period 2007- 2013 it was involved as a partner or coordinating institution in more than 750 European projects, among them 160 FP7 projects and 2 ERC grants. In 2018 UL cooperates in 405 running international projects, including 83 FP7 and H2020 project projects and more than 380 other research and educational projects financed by EU Community programs.

At the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the research and education activities in the Laboratory for Energy Policy (LEST) mainly focuses on various issues related to power systems planning, operation and control, as well as energy policy and electricity markets regulation. The main research activities are focused on long-term security of supply forecasting, optimal operation of hydro-thermal systems, forecasting the availability of renewable energy sources and its support policy, asset management in generation and transmission, and power system economics. LEST has also been strongly involved in solving real life problems for energy sector. LEST is very active on EU research level, it participated on several FP6, FP7 and H2020 projects.

Research and development in the Laboratory of Electricity Networks and Devices (LEND) primarily tackle power quality issues. An important field of interest lately includes the interconnection of distributed generation into electricity networks and its influence on power quality. Both LEST and LEND are among the founders of the Centre for Distributed Energy Sources at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Ljubljana. Through their participation in European projects, our researchers have developed close international cooperation.

Laboratory for Telecommunications together with Laboratory for multimedia (LTFE) is a young and dynamic team involved in research, development and education in ICT and multimedia. LTFE vision is delivering state-of-the-art ICT industry and research projects, lately especially in the fields of IoT (Internet of things), smart grids and demand response.

 

The project

UL is responsible for control strategies design, demonstration monitoring design and large scale simulations of storage deployment in the power system.

UL is responsible for control strategies design, demonstration monitoring design and large scale simulations of storage deployment in the power system.

In this project UL will lead of the extrapolation activities in WP7 and participate in the knowledge sharing and innovation integration (WP2), grid challenges identification and evaluation (WP3), development of control strategies and simulations for Elektro Gorenjska demo sites (WP3 and WP5), monitoring evaluation (WP6), and support the work on the business model development (WP8).

In WP3 UL will with their experience from smart grids development projects mostly contribute in T3.1 Grid challenges impact factor analysis and T3.2 Identification of optimal solutions for grid challenges. Development of control strategies for the first community battery in Slovenia will also be performed by UL. As a supporting partner to Elektro Gorenjska demonstration sites, UL team will design, evaluate and update control algorithms and perform robustness check on them.

WP6 seeks to provide information supporting business cases, design of new regulations, etc. leading to correct choices for storage deployment, specifically to answer the key questions regarding these business cases. UL participation in WP6 will be shown in T6.1 Performance evaluation methodology, which includes engagement in subtasks 6.1.1 Key Performance Indicators, 6.1.2 Data for performance evaluation and 6.1.3 Methods and criteria for performance evaluation. The contribution will also be in Task 6.4 Users of measured data, where data ownership, privacy and sharing will be discussed.

As a WP leader UL will lead exploration activities of WP7 where adding large amounts of storage, its impact on the grid operation, the RES integration and the overall efficiency of the electricity production will be evaluated. The WP7 consist of the following tasks: Task 7.1 Selection of cases, which will be used for evaluation, Task 7.2 Large scale network modelling approach, with the emphasis on economic and technology impact of large scale storage and Task 7.3 Large scale impact simulations, where all simulations will be concluded. Additional analysis will be performed in Task 7.4 Social and environmental analysis and T 7.5 Evaluation of the results.

Development of control strategies for the first community battery in Slovenia.

The team

Main Contact

Andrej Gubina, Associate Professor

“Story for me is the way to a brighter future where the excess energy is stored for a rainy day!”

Visit University of Ljubljana

Photo – from left to right: Tomi Medved, Andrej Gubina, Andrej Jernej Zupančič, Blaž Prislan

Introduction

As a family-run company, Viessmann sets great store by responsible conduct with a long-term vision. Sustainability is already firmly embedded into the company’s guiding principles. For Viessmann, the practice of sustainability means reconciling cost efficiency, ecology and social responsibility throughout the entire company to enable us to meet our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.

As an environmental pioneer and technology leader in the heating industry, Viessmann has been supplying minimal emission, energy-efficient heating systems for oil and gas for decades as well as solar thermal systems, wood combustion systems and heat pumps. Many Viessmann developments are regarded as milestones in heating technology. The Viessmann Group is one of the leading international manufacturers of heating, cooling and climate control technology. Founded in 1917, the family business maintains a staff of approximately 11,500 employees and generates 2.2 billion Euro in annual group turnover.

The Viessmann Group is one of the leading international manufacturers of heating, cooling and climate control technology. Founded in 1917, the family business maintains a staff of approximately 11,500 employees and generates 2.2 billion Euro in annual group turnover.

With 22 production divisions in 11 countries, subsidiaries and representations in 74 countries and 120 sales offices around the world, Viessmann is an internationally orientated company. 56 percent of sales are generated abroad.

The project

Our R&D is focused on developing particularly energy efficient heating systems for all fuel types. Our ability to innovate has already produced many technical milestones. We always look to the challenges of the future and the needs of our customers, whilst setting benchmarks for the best possible technology. The next milestone should be a combined production of heat and electricity by a fuel cell, there are many types of fuel cell : this is a polymer electrolyte fuel cell

(PEFC)-based micro combined heat and power (mCHP) system.

Our purpose is to apply this new technology at cluster level, introduction in real installation and give our support about the impact of the heating system in the micro-grid, without loss of comfort for the end user. We will also provide buffer tank and solar thermal collector for the complete heating system, production of domestic hot water, and thermal storage of energy.

 

The team

Main contact

Laurent Vercruysse, Technical Director

“STORY for me is the opportunity to introduce new developed technology in a real situation and to be sure that the technology really work properly and have a positive contribution at micro-grid level.”

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Introduction

VITO, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research, is a Belgian independent research and technology organisation in the areas of cleantech and sustainable development, elaborating solutions for the large societal challenges of today.

VITO provides innovative and high-quality solutions, whereby large and small companies can gain a competitive advantage, and advises industry and governments on determining their policy for the future. VITO has more than 750 highly-qualified employees who work on international projects all around the world. VITO’s headquarters are located in Mol, Belgium, and the company has a subsidiary in China. The total turnover of VITO amounted to about 140 million euros in 2014.

Activities are focusing on five different research programmes: sustainable chemistry, energy, health, materials management and land use. Each programme builds up a strong base of knowledge and skill, with added value for industry and society. The result is new and innovative research and a comprehensive range of scientific services.

In VITO’s five areas of expertise, a societal transition is taking place or is urgently needed. Smart grids, intensive re-use of resources, a bio-based economy, all these developments require new and better sustainable technologies, as well as a change in mindset. That is why VITO is working hard on sustainability and transition thinking as binding factors between the five research programmes.

The project

The demand for renewable energy increases every day. VITO and EnergyVille are performing research into two crucial technological breakthroughs: electricity storage and the optimisation of thermal energy systems.

Smart heat networks combine the short and long-term storage of energy and interact with other energy networks (electricity and gas) and renewable energy sources, including geothermal energy. That’s why VITO’s Energy Technology group has chosen to zoom in on storage concepts for thermal energy and conversion technologies.

This knowledge and expertise will enable us, together with all partners, to push the project forward. Our contribution will focus on a.o. identification of the optimal thermal storage solutions for particular grid challenges. For optimal control and integration, efficient and reliable determination methods of the state-of-charge of the installed storage units will be implemented in the residential building and industrial area demonstration sites by Vito. Data gathered during the monitoring of these sites will be used to further optimize the developed routines.

Not only the data related to the state-of-charge determination will be closely monitored, but also the general performance of the private industrial grid (Beneens, Belgium) will be analysed by Vito. Finally Vito will also assist in the development of business models and propose a range of future oriented scenarios of the electricity grid.

The team

Main Contact

Johan Van Bael, Project Manager Unit Energy Technology

“STORY for me is the further adaptation, simulation and demonstration of the smart state of charge measurement methodology for thermal energy storage developed by VITO. ”

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Photo – from left to right: Jan Diriken, Johan Van Bael

Introduction

Vlerick Business School is an international business school with roots in Belgium in the heart of Europe. Each year some 500 students enrol for Masters and MBA programmes in the campuses in Brussels, Ghent, Leuven and St-Petersburg. Over 5,000 executives attend the management development programmes. Moreover, Vlerick is one of the few in the world to hold triple accreditation: Equis, AMBA and AACSB. Both the Financial Times and the Economist Intelligence Unit have consistently ranked the School as the n°1 in the Benelux and within the top 20 in Europe. Vlerick combines academic knowledge with hands-on business expertise − a dynamic balance that stimulates entrepreneurship and innovation.

Within Vlerick Business School, the Energy Centre acts as a multidisciplinary research platform that focuses on the future of the electricity networks business from different viewpoints such as innovation management, business model innovation and non-market strategies. Research insights are fed back to the industry through research partnerships and the Future Grid Managers Programme, which is the Centre’s flagship international program for senior managers of TSOs and DSOs from all over Europe.

The project

With its extensive expertise in general business challenges, non-market strategies and the energy sector, Vlerick Business School takes the lead within STORY on the business cases for rolling out electricity storage at the distribution level of the electricity grid. These business cases revolve around the business challenges of storage deployment and the interactions between the business models and the market and regulatory contexts that are necessary to support these cases.

Dealing with these interactions, the work is organized along three work streams. A first stream focuses on the study of business models, a second stream deals with the market and regulatory contexts for storage deployment, and the third stream focuses on viable business cases, meaning combinations of business models and market and regulatory contexts

We support the team running the simulations by performing an evaluation of the large-scale simulation of storage deployment in terms of the costs and the benefits for the market, the consumers and the investors.

Finally, we engage in exchanging best practices between STORY and the other EU research projects on storage and smart grids to ensure that lessons learnt are shared and picked up by researchers, policy makers and the general public.

The team

Main contact

Leonardo Meeus, Associate Professor & Director Energy Centre

“STORY for us is about advancing the storage technologies that will fundamentally change the way we consume and produce electricity.”

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Photo – from left to right: Ilan Momber, Samson Yemane Hadush, Leonardo Meeus, Nico Keyaerts

Introduction

ABB is a pioneering technology leader in electrification products, robotics and motion, industrial automation and power grids, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure globally. Continuing a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB today is writing the future of industrial digitalization and driving the Energy and Fourth Industrial Revolutions. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 136,000 employees.

ABB’s scalable and highly flexible products and solutions provide utilities, renewable power plant operators, commercial & industrial customers as well as investors an affordable way to maximize their return on investment.

Our energy storage products and solutions ensure power supply resilience, power quality, sustainability and cost-effectiveness in a broad range of applications, including microgrids.

ABB’s renewable plant automation solutions simplify plant operations and improve power production.  With a simple automation and management system to oversee all plant assets, customers can reduce the time, effort and cost they expend on overseeing and optimizing their renewable investments.

The project

In STORY, ABB will be the technology provider for the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) for two DEMOs (residential and industrial) to be installed in Slovenia in the medium and low voltage grid. The 170 kW, 330kWh battery storage unit is meant for supporting the substation in the MV level in order to stabilize the grid, improve power quality and efficiency, moderate peak demand and integrate Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The aim is to demonstrate the flexibility and the robustness of the unit and its control management system in fitting different circumstances, and the ease of integrating it into the existing infrastructure.

Specifically, ABB will design, assemble, test and deliver its new outdoor battery energy system solution. Testing the solution (safety aspects, communication, potential failure, and harmonic compensation) will be done in ABB facilities. After delivery, ABB will monitor its full integration into the grid in collaboration with the other partners, primarily Sipronika and EG. In the view of the installation of the BESS system for both residential and industrial application, this monitoring period would be extremely helpful to collect crucial data and foresee BESS adaptation and improvements to ensure smooth integration into different grid systems. Indeed, data from the BESS will be recorded from the Battery Management System (BMS), Energy Storage Inverter Controller, and the Energy Management System and automatically sent through the Sipronika Master controller to the BASEN data-platform.

The team

Main contact:

Stefano N. Granata, Ph.D.

„STORY for me is the opportunity to bring real system change into daily, ordinary life“

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Photo – from left to right: Stefano N. Granata, Kyriakos Papachrysanthou, Diego Peguim, Maxime Laffineur, Antoine Gastineau. Not present in the picture: Sebastien Massin, Ved Sinha, Marcus Sousa, Georgi G. Georgiev.

Introduction

Th!nk E challenges existing approaches on smart buildings, districts and cities and develops solutions, turns concepts upside down and enjoys making things better.

Th!nk E is technical coordinator of both Cityzen, a Smart Cities project in Amsterdam and Grenoble, and Story. Th!nk E takes an active innovation minded role in each of those projects. Besides that, Th!nk E re-develops existing concepts and products for different Belgian and European companies. Th!nk E further develops its own products, mainly supporting the roll out of Local Energy Communities.

Th!nk E is taking up innovation and valorisation oriented roles in different contexts: The European Smart Cities Information System (SCIS), Flux50 (The Flemish Energy Cluster) and Bridge.

 Our moto? My engineered enrichment…

The project

Th!nk E was the initiator and conceptual designer of the project STORY. During the project execution, Th!nk E takes the role of technical coordinator in the overall project management. That means a more content oriented management, while VTT as experienced project manager takes care of the legal, financial and administrative part.

Th!nk E takes a considerable share in the modelling of the demonstrations and rolling out two demonstrations. The demonstrations under the responsibility of Th!nk E include a Living Lab that will be equipped with a car charging, batteries and thermal storage (short term and seasonal) and next a range of up to 13 dwellings that will be equipped with a fuel cell, batteries and thermal storage (short term and seasonal) and consequently be connected to form a micro-grid. Th!nk E will actively participate in processing and analysing the results of its two demonstrators, i.e. the buildings and the street.

Finally Th!nk E is leader of WP9 on dissemination and deployment. With highly engaged partners as Loptafilm, Joanneum Research and Prospex, this will turn into an exiting adventure! In the framework of this WP, Th!nk E takes a role as co-chair in the business model working group of all LCE6-10 projects, another inspiring side track of STORY.

The team

Main contact

Leen Peeters

“STORY for me is making innovations work.”

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Photo – from left to right: Tine Stevens, Leen Peeters