World’s First Open Microgrid Lets Commercial Zones Co-Invest and Optimize Energy Resources
Two new pilot projects, dubbed ‘E-Cloud’ seek to develop and optimize open microgrids in Belgium’s industrial zones.
E-cloud is funded by the local Wallonia government. The “eco-zoning” will allow different companies in the same commercial park to invest together into distributed energy resources such as solar arrays and energy storage projects. The electricity can then be shared in an optimal way between buildings and the utility grid.
The E-Cloud pilot project includes companies, universities, local agencies, power producers, and universities. N-SIDE, a software and analytics company based in Belgium will develop the optimization platform for the following:
- Optimal investment in RES
- Optimal repartition of produced electricity
- Optimal electricity storage strategy
- Optimal billing strategy managed by DSO
- Optimal interaction with network
Other project partners include ORES and RESA, energy suppliers EOLY, Universities ULg and UMons and territorial development agencies (IDETA, SPI).
The project kicked-off in 2016 and will last 3 years. The pilot studies will be conducted in ORES and RESA distribution networks.
