The current economic scenario has added new challenges to our sector. The uncertainty that has characterized global economies is also affecting power grids. Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) that do not use fossil fuels (solar PV systems, for example) - besides helping decarbonize the energy system - are becoming an economically attractive alternative to grid-supplied electricity. As it quoted by the International Energy Agency (IEA), they can create new opportunities and can be useful in improving reliability and resilience in reducing costs. At the same time, they can pose new challenges if the grid is not properly prepared.
The shift in power generation from traditional, predictable sources to distributed, intermittent renewables increases the complexity of energy flows and requires greater system flexibility to consistently balance supply and demand, as well as, digitalized power grids that can timely handle the input and distribution of clean energy.
Gridpsertise aims to help Distribution System Operators (DSOs) face this challenge. Set up in 2021 as a carve-out of Enel Grids’ 20 years of experience in developing, testing, and scaling digital technologies, our company offers intelligent devices, end-to-end cloud-edge platform-based solutions, and services to accelerate the digital transformation of DSOs. In keeping sustainability in mind, our company enables the best use of existing infrastructure to make the most of distributed renewables.
The Italian Context
At Gridspertise we are concerned with technologies for the digitalization of distribution networks as today there are a rising number of producers that supply energy in different ways. We, therefore, must ensure that existing DSOs can best accommodate these clean resources, using them locally and for the benefits of the local context. This means using them closer to production and providing benefits both to the system and connected users.
To put some crucial data into words: the focal point of entry in the electrical system is shifting from transmission to distribution. As quoted in a news article published by Enel Group, the analysts of BloombergNEF estimate that the share of energy input in the distribution network in Europe will rise to 66%, up from 27% in the last year.
Italy is among the European countries most prepared for renewable energy integration. The Italian grid is highly digitalized, supported by Gridspertise’s innovation and state-of-art testing activities, we have industrialized technologies used to handle the injection and the distribution of clean energies, the electrification of consumption, and the increase of e-mobility.
The work of our highly skilled technicians is the core of our Smart Grid Lab in Milan, Italy. Here we can run tests in exceptional real conditions, such as extreme weather conditions, and conduct controlled environment simulations to analyze the potential and the integration on a grid of different flexibility resources.
Our lab in Milan was featured in an episode of Report, a program of the Italian national broadcast RAI 3 dedicated to investigative journalism. It was the occasion to deepen with a broader audience the concept behind grid digitalization technologies explaining how thanks to them we are not capable of wasting any energy and “sending” electrons where are more necessary.
These cutting-edge technologies developed and tested in Italy are available to help DSOs worldwide.
Observability, reconfiguration, and flexibility
To this day, we can present a 3-step journey to discover the technologies supporting digital grids that enable the massive integration of renewable energy, ensuring that where there is a renewable resource, it can automatically be integrated, without risk of waste.
- The first step is observability
While observing large power plants is easy, observing distributed power generation is more difficult, bringing a high degree of uncertainty and variability into the electricity network due to intermittent generation.
Gridspertise solutions enable the observability of distributed energy resources connected to the Medium Voltage grid, enabling the communication of the related information in near real-time to the Transmission System Operator. (TSO) Direct measurements on the state of power plant performance are acquired, enabling monitoring and coordination functionalities.
- The second step is reconfiguration
Reconfiguration is linked to grid network technologies that allow DSOs to intervene in the medium and low voltage network in order to reconfigure and optimize energy flows to integrate more renewables and keep the grid stable, improving final user experience and system sustainability.
These solutions allow DSOs to have a more resilient network that adapts to real-time situations, to accept the maximum possible energy capacity, signal critical situations and even self-reconfigure in the presence of fault events.
In fact, Gridspertise has developed a solution for MV automation, which enhances any legacy SCADA capabilities with advanced fault location, isolation and service restoration (FLISR) functionalities. It can provide either slow or fast self-healing automation, reaching a response time within with a recovery time ranging from 3 minutes to less than one second.
- The last step is flexibility
At Gridspertise, flexibility is our modus operandi as it has become a crucial need within the power sector. Thanks to these network technologies we can help DSOs in identifying flexibility needs, understand how to manage and reconfigure loads, and thus require in the market for a resource to supply energy. In this way, we enable prosumers to participate more actively in the market, creating opportunities for economic benefit for the market participants.
To give you an idea, in the near future, our technologies could allow a prosumer to feed energy into the system from its electric vehicle being recharged while making the infrastructure more efficient by maximizing and optimizing the distribution of energy from renewable sources.
Observability, reconfiguration, and flexibility are not only the main steps in this journey to discover the technologies supporting digital grids, but they are also some of the greatest features that DSOs and users can find in our advanced solutions. At Gridspertise we have not only implemented these ideas in our products to tackle the current challenges posed to the power sector, but as the fundamental pillars of our mission to make grids smarter and more sustainable.