Deploying Smart Grids at Scale

Dates

December 2019 to March 2022

Project staff

Dr Mohammad Royapoor, Dr Chris Mullen

Sponsors

Innovate UK

Partners

Connected Energy, West Sussex County Council, ICAX, Faithful and Gould, Passivsystems, Moixa, ITM Power, Honda, Adur and Worthing Councils

Description

Smart grids are not used at scale due to:

• the lack of open architecture Internet of Things (IoT) systems linking generation and demand
• stable markets for storage and demand shifting and quantifiable service revenue streams
• local deployment of smart grids, enabling demand assurance and multi-vector approaches

Smart Hubs Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES) will tackle these innovation challenges via a large scale demonstrator. The demonstrator deploys hybrid systems across heat, power and transport. Interoperable IoT layers connect the systems, and the layers function as a heterogeneous Virtual Power Plant (VPP).

We will achieve a 30% reduction in future SLES deployment costs. This cost reduction will be across the portfolio of technologies and business model innovations.

The demonstrator will provide evidence for maintenance, operation and revenue profiles. This will lead to SLES becoming self-fundable by the early 2020s.

The virtual power plant

A VPP will connect hybrid systems and optimise the energy vector and storage. The VPP will be connected to mesh network reinforcement to balance the low voltage (LV) network across substations.

We will connect a variety of technologies to the VPP, including the following.

Hybrid charging stations

We will explore the use of Hybrid Charging Stations for Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCEV) and Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV). These integrate slow response hydrogen storage and electrolysis with fast response of lithium storage. This reduces grid impact and offers a wider range of grid balancing services.

Hybrid heating

We will use Hybrid Heating for electrified Heat Pumps and Gas CHP/boilers. Machine learning and smart metering systems will switch heat generation between gas and electricity. Switching will be based on the lowest cost of CO2 emissions.

Implementing the technologies

We will establish a smart grid procurement and project management framework. This framework will comply with the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) requirements. It will be at nationwide level. This will enable replication across the public sector supported via consortium members.