The European InteGrid project, which had 14 partners from 8 European countries and was coordinated by EDP Distribuição, has now come to an end, after 46 months, and has shown positive results for all those involved.
The project included the development of a high set of smart grid management tools, as well as the installation of equipment such as batteries and solar panels, in the home of residential customers, in order to allow greater interaction and availability of data on the electricity network. For medium voltage customers, an intelligent consumption monitoring solution was installed.
The main objective was to test innovative solutions for intelligent electric grids on the ground in 3 areas: (i) flexibility of electricity consumption for domestic and industrial consumers, allowing better perception of consumption and adaptation of behaviors (ii) storage systems energy and (iii) renewable energy production and consumption forecasts.
In Portugal, the project took place in the municipalities of Alcochete, Caldas da Rainha, Valverde and Mafra and had the participation of 145 domestic customers and 20 medium voltage customers.
For the 145 domestic customers, who saw their homes installed with photovoltaic solar panels, it was possible to demonstrate a self-consumption of 57%, that is, renewable energy generated locally and managed in a distributed manner, reducing the consumption of the network proportionately .
In the medium voltage network, on the other hand, the tools implemented and the flexibility provided by customers, allowed to identify and resolve 100% of the constraints foreseen in the network in advance. In these customers, the results also showed savings of up to 9.5% in energy consumption.
Regarding the peak power (maximum capacity of the power distribution lines), a crucial element in the cost of access to the network, it was possible to note a reduction of up to 12% in residential customers, in a phase prior to confinement, whereas, for customers industrial customers, the reduction was 4.5%. These values represent an optimization potential for the cost of the power contracted by the customer, for the management of the distribution network and for the national electrical system.
The InteGrid Project received funding of around 14.5 million euros from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program *, and brought citizens of Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia closer to the players in the electricity sector.
With the end of InteGrid and the launch of new projects such as EUniversal, OneNet and 5Gaas, EDP Distribuição continues to invest heavily in participation in European innovation projects, which expand the role of the Distribution Network Operator, in line with policies European standards, thus tracing its path towards a more intelligent and efficient network management, contributing to a more sustainable world.
