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Description
Syntio is a data engineering company, founded in Zagreb, with offices in the United States and Denmark to expand its global footprint in cloud data engineering. Project Promoter has two Partners on the project: Grid ONE Ltd. and North-West Croatia Energy Agency - REGEA.
This project aims to develop a real-time solar energy sharing platform for Energy Communities (ECs). Energy Community (EC) represents a group of individuals and small enterprises with the common goal of enabling and using energy service (energy generation, consumption, storage, aggregation, etc.). ECs, as described in the EU Directive 2018/2001, will enable local energy sharing within the EC. The energy is produced locally thus the fees for the usage of the transmission and distribution grid will be significantly decreased or even completely excluded. This enables the reduction of energy costs for consumers in the EC and an income increase for solar energy producers.
The main project value is enabling users in Energy Communities to plan, control and diminish their electricity cost, transforming them into green energy prosumers (producers-consumers) and creating a platform for their future participation in advanced market features (such as bidding etc.). Outputs of this project have potential to enter international markets, which leads to increased competitiveness of the Project Promoter and Partners. Opportunities in this project are innovative applications of the ICT solutions in the energy sector, currently inefficient management of solar power plants and clear market need for a solution that will govern Energy Communities.
The general objective of the project is increasing the Project Promoter''s and Partner''s competitiveness through developement of the software platform for the management of EC and real time energy sharing. The reduction in CO2 emissions is an indirect result of the EC platform.
Summary of project results
The EU Green Deal defines the blueprint for a transformational change toward a climate-neutral continent by 2050. To reach those goals, a significant increase in renewable energy sources is key. Due to a sharp reduction in the cost of solar panels, solar power is being the fastest growing energy source in EU. Solar power plants integrated into buildings are predominant in number and cumulative power and are designed for local energy consumption. But solar energy is volatile (liable to change unpredictably) and intermittent (not continuous), thus it is very difficult to balance local production and consumption. Consumers with rooftop solar production have to pay for the energy delivered from the power grid (e.g. during the night or rain). They can use the solar energy when available and sell the energy surplus in periods of high production and low consumption. Energy Communities (ECs), as described in the EU Directive 2018/2001, will enable local energy sharing within the EC. The energy is produced locally thus the fees for the usage of the transmission and distribution grid will be significantly decreased or even completely excluded. This enables the reduction of energy costs for consumers in the EC and an income increase for solar energy producers.
In order to maximise the benefits of ECs and enable smart energy sharing, a real time platform is inevitable. This project will be the enabler for future research and development solutions like load balancing, consumption and production forecasting on EC level. Only when real-time energy balance information within the community is available those advanced features will be possible. Final features needed to integrate into the platform is the development of the report, billing and invoicing module. The mode of operation will greatly depend on the various trading models and the specifics of the country deployed in.
The main objective of this project is to develop PlAtform for Real-time Solar Energy Communities (PARSEC), which establishes hardware, software and legal elements for forming energy communities.
All the main activities have been completed successfully: 1. Development of energy community models, 2. Development of an acquisition system for energy communities, 3. Development of a real-time energy sharing platform for energy communities and 4. Development of mobile and web applications.
Project outputs from the Contract have been successfully reached: 1 innovative green solution developed (new to the market) by 2024 and 1 external research expertise involved to develop green solution by 2024.
One of the key focuses was the completion of the legal registration of the first energy community in Croatia “Moja Energetska Zajednica” or MEC “My Energy Community”. The registration was successfully completed, and the first energy community has been established on March 2nd. In addition to that, the first entity has been registered for organizing citizen energy communities on March 5th. All members of the first energy community have been equipped with smart meters and Wi-Fi smart meter readers for the integration on the MEC platform. The pilot energy community has been initiated on the MEC platform and the operation has been tested from the data source to trading models and billing calculations.
With the successful completion of the project activities, the expected outcomes from the contract will be checked after 2024, but already showing promising results for the Promoter (Syntio):
- Estimated increase in turnover: 202% (base line year: 2020 - target year: after 2024)
- Estimated increase in net operating profit: 121% (base line year: 2020 - target year: after 2024)
- Estimated increase of full-time employment after the project implementation: 3
- Estimated number of Trademark registrations after the project implementation: 1
- Estimated annual decrease of CO2 emissions: 14.500 tCO2 annually in Croatia by 2030 (indirect impact from the project).
The Partner (Grid ONE) is also expected to have increased turnover, profit and employment from the project results and the project partnership.
Beneficiaries are also the members of the future Energy Communities which will have access to greener and cheaper electric energy.