The increasing amount of prosumers, citizens and organisations both consuming and producing electricity for the grid and providing flexibility from e.g. their V2G vehicles makes the DSOs need a wider overview and control of what is going on in the grid.
To integrate the prosumers the will need an IoT platform. To meet this demand, FlexiGrid’s IoT platform is an intelligent software platform which was designed to have some complex functions such as: facilitate the connection to the devices, secure and manage the connected devices and enable the analysis of data. A unified environment will allow the visualization and management of multiple data sets from different IoT devices, such as smart meters.
The main capabilities of an IoT platform for the energy sector are:
– Consumption data tracking in real-time;
– Historical data and trend analysis;
– Setting up alerts and notifications;
– Integrate forecasting tools;
– Manage the voltage violations;
– Having a centralised a map of user’s location.
– Launching auctions;
– Offering the support of user communication.
Within FlexiGrid, an IoT platform is being developed by SIMAVI in order to respond to the new requirements of DSOs. This will present a big opportunity for testing the implementation of the platform in the 4 demo sites located in: Sweden, Bulgaria, Switzerland and Turkey.
The value that this product will bring for DSOs using the IoT platform is that it will help avoid congestion on the grid with the help of forecasting algorithms and it will help keep the volage within the limits by utilising the integrated tools, one such example being: Running a “what if” scenario.
The IoT platform resulting from this project packed by a great amount of research will offer a very secure, intelligent and intuitive way of operating the data received from the IoT devices, acting as a first step in the process of reading and visualising the data.
FlexiGrid will be arranging webinars explaining in detail how the IoT platform can be the main tool for DSOs to avoid congestion in the grid and save resources in reducing the need for expanding the existing grid.