Real proven solutions to enable active demand and distributed generation flexible integration, through a fully controllable LOW Voltage and medium voltage distribution grid
UPGRID project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 646.531
UPGRID’s Last Updates
Follow us on
November 15-17, 2016 · European Utility Week 2016 (Events)
August 21-26, 2016 · CIGRÉ Paris 2016 (Events)
June 27-28, 2016 · InnoGrid2020+ (Events)
Project
The UPGRID project started in the beginning of 2015 under the H2020 program and is being developed by a European consortium, composed of 19 partners from 7 European countries: Spain, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, United Kingdom, France and Norway.
The project includes 4 demonstrators that are being deployed from April 2015 to June 2017 at Bilbao area in the North of Spain, Parque das Nações in Lisbon (Portugal), Åmål in Dalsland in the South of Sweden, and Gdynia in Pomeranian Region (Poland).
Partners
Demonstrations
Deliverables
Budget (M€)
Project Information
| Call | H2020-LCE-2014-3 |
| Topic | LCE-2014: Distribution grid and retail market |
| Type of action | Innovation Actions (IA-2) |
| Coordinator | Iberdrola Distribución Eléctrica, S.A.U. |
| Partners | 19 Partners · 7 European Countries |
| Project budget | 15,7 M€ · 11,9 M€ funded |
| Execution Period | 01/01/2015 – 31/12/2017 |
Objectives
The project will develop and validate solutions to enable the implementation of advanced functionalities over existing technology, to form a truly integrated intelligent system.
With this project, an improvement of the monitoring and controlability of low voltage (LV) and medium voltage (MV) grids is expected, as a way to anticipate technical problems associated with large scale integration of DER (Distributed Energy Resources), bringing also end users closer to system operation and planning.
Expected Results
Observability and control of LV grid
- Achieve sound LV network representation
- Functional specification of LV dispatch
- Deployment of tools to support LV operation of field crews
- Improvement in Operations and Maintenance of LV grid
- Improvement of QoS to customers
Enhance the role of DSOs to facilitate and open market for services
- Evaluation of incentive and market framework in demo regions
- Identification of investment alternatives for UPGRID innovative concepts
- Assessment of optimal business models for market participants
Extensive use of AMI Infrastructure
- Integration and processing of meter events in the OMS (Outage Management System)
- Deployment of Multiservice PRIME subnetwork
- Development of LV grid remote control operation over Smart Metering PRIME infrastructure
Participation of customers, distributed generation and energy storage in network management
- Improvement of customer capacity building web-based systems
- Development of interactive communication campaigns
- Societal research on the socio-economic impact of Smart Grid solutions on the demo regions
UPGRID within H2020: Bridge
Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020) – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market.
UPGRID addresses the topic ” Distribution grid and retail market” (LCE 7– 2014) of the call for competitive low-carbon energy (LCE) (H2020-LCE-2014-3) within the “Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2014-2015”, Societal Challenge “Secure, clean and efficient energy”.
The LCE 6 to LCE 10 projects within the Horizon 2020 Electricity Grid Energy Storage 2014-2015 Calls are managed by EC/ DG ENERGY.
The integrated approach demands, that all demonstration projects shall integrate innovative Technology development, innovative Business models, develop plans for market uptake (including scaling-up and replication) and check existing market barriers and work out proposals for solutions (policy, legislation, regulation, etc.).
Further the knowledge sharing among LCE 6 to LCE 10 is very important. Bridge is a cooperation of all accepted LCE 6-10 projects funded under Horizon 2020. The target is to evolve a continuous dialogue and exchange of experiences between the different projects on Smart Grid & Storage. It kicked-off with the 1st Workshop held in Brussels 21 May 2015. Four working groups have been teamed up:
- Data management
- Business models
- Regulations, and
- Customer engagement.
The four working groups will meet regularly.
Further information:
Joint website of the Horizon 2020 Smart Grids and storage projects
Consortium
Structure of the Project
PROJECT COORDINATOR
Roberto González Sainz-Maza
Iberdrola Distribución Eléctrica
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
Ángel Díaz Gallo
Tecnalia
WP3 - Demo 1 · Spain
WP7 - Market & Business Framework
WP leader: Goran Strbac, Imperial College
This WP aims at:
- identifying strengths and weakness of the present market and incentives framework,
- existing barriers and gaps in facilitating investment in innovative technologies, proposing alternative policy and incentive regimes,
- developing novel business models for different market participants to facilitate roll out of cost effective UPGRID solutions.
WP2 - Innovative distribution grid applications and functions
WP leader: Eduardo García, Tecnalia
This WP aims at identifying common specific use cases and functions that will be deployed by different demos in the project in relation to:
- Improved supervision and management of MV/LV grid: state estimation, events and alarms supervision, load & generation forecasting, fault location tools, outage management
- Services provided by DSOs to the retail market: DSM services, smart analytics of load curves, design of neutral access platform
- Use of CIM as the reference data model for the project
WP1 - Scope and boundaries of project demos
WP leader: Raúl Bachiller, Iberdrola
The objective is to define the scope of the four demonstrations by getting answers to the questions:
- What elements are needed, which are already in place and which ones will be developed in the project
- What is the size of the demos, boundary conditions and use cases to be tested/validated
- Which are the applicable standards for the used solutions
- Which are the KPIs for monitoring the demos
- Which are the preliminary business opportunities envisaged for the different actor
WP8 - Monitoring & Impact assessment of project demonstrations
WP leader: Alvaro Sánchez, Universidad de Comillas
The objective is the analysis of the to compare results, advantages and disadvantages of implementation and operation, expected life cycles and cost- benefit analysis, taking also into account the indirect impacts like environmental issues and social benefits.
In this way, it will be possible to extrapolate its results to an immediate exploitation of industrial results, and to verify the scalability and replicability of the demos.
WP9 - User engagement, societal research and dissemination of project results
WP leader: Luis Seca, Inesc
The main aims of this WP are twofold:
- To make aware the final users and the society in general, that the Smart Grid technologies bring benefit to them and to propose actions to address some concerns that the citizens could have in relation with these technologies.
- To broadly disseminate the results and findings of the project to the general audience and to those actors more directly involved in the technical and socioeconomic domains of the Smart Grid.
WP4 - Demo 2 · Portugal
WP5 - Demo 3 · Sweden
WP6 - Demo 4 · Poland
Demonstrations
The Spanish demonstrator is being carried out in Bilbao area in the North of Spain. The demonstrator area is characterised by 1.075 Secondary Substations (SSs) and more than 190.000 customers are involved.
The Swedish demonstrator takes place in a rural part of southern Sweden (west side), close to the small town of Åmål. The demonstrator area is characterised by 2 MV lines with a total of 51 SSs involving 528 customers and LV lines are mostly overhead.
The Portuguese demonstrator is deployed in Lisbon within the parish of Parque das Nações. The demonstrator area is characterised by 2 substations, 140 SSs, 13.450 residential consumers (LV) and 16 EV charging stations.
Polish demonstrator project is located in the city of Gdynia that is a city in the Pomeranian Region. The demonstrator area is characterised by 55 MV/LV SSs, 38 km of power MV, 102 km of LV lines which supply near 14.700 customers.
Publications
News
Four Innovative Low Voltage Smart Grid Demonstrators are Being Deployed in Europe
Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Poland are developing four big smart grid demonstrators until the end of 2017. The goal is to provide the electrical system with new products and services to enhance the management and operation of distribution networks improving the response to consumer needs (e.g. reduce power supply restoration time, more accurate and immediate information, increase consumer participation in the market, etc…).
read more
Kick-off of the UPGRID Project
Iberdrola`s Headquarter, Madrid
UPGRID starts at Iberdrola headquarters to allow the electricity market to be open in the future allowing competition in the final use of the energy. Mr. Roberto González, Iberdrola, as Project coordinator, remarked that the Project success is the success of all demos and transversal activities from all the partners. He closed the event highlighting the common target of making UPGRID become a Lighthouse project and encouraging the cooperation to achieve it.
read moreEvents
November 15-17, 2016 · European Utility Week 2016
Location: Fira Barcelona Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain
Date: 15-17 November, 2016
Link of the event: http://www.european-utility-week.com/
UPGRID project will be presented in the Hub Session, “Intelligent Grid” – session 37 Optimization (November 15th from 14:00 to 17:30). The speech to the conference will have the following title: UPGRID, proven solutions for operating present and future LV networks (speaker: Roberto González Sainz-Maza, UPGRID Coordinator, Iberdrola). After a brief explanation of the project, the presentation will cover what is being done to improve the operation and management of LV networks in UPGRID. The session will be finished with an interactive panel with all participants. Moreover, an UPGRID poster will be available in the Smart Grids Basque Country stand during the three days of the event.
About the event:
European Utility Week is the premier landmark event in Europe for the entire utility sector, accumulating over 12.000 international smart energy stakeholders and 600 exhibitors.
It is a dynamic and energizing 3-day business, innovation and information platform facilitating greater networking and content sharing opportunities. The programme is developed to serve every level of the utility value chain in the form of a strategic and policy forming environment during the exclusive Summit and the more practical case studies presented during the Hub Sessions, free to attend for all visitors.
August 21-26, 2016 · CIGRÉ Paris 2016
Location: Palais des Congrès Porte Maillot, Paris, France
Date: 21 – 26 August 2016
Link of the event: http://www.cigre.org/Events/Session/Session-2016
On this event UPGRID project have prepare a paper based on the Spanish demo work titled: “Beyond Smart Meters: Management of the LV network” (paper C6-206).
June 27-29, 2016 · GRE 2016 - XV International Conference Science and Technology Forum of Energetic
Location: Centrum Kongresów i Rekreacji “Orle Gniazdo” (Szczyrku – Poland)
Date: 27 – 29 June 2016
Link of the event: http://konferencje.nowa-energia.com.pl/gre/2016/
The main objective of the conference is to exchange experiences of industry and science, to present the achievements and developments of energy, promotion of the opportunities for learning, life with special regard to progress in technology, construction and operation of energy systems and the presentation of the achievements of scientific research and implementation obtained in four research tasks carried out in the framework of the Strategic Programme for Research and Development Works Fri. “Advanced technologies for energy generation”.
On this forum Energa will present the UPGRID’s Polish demonstrator project located in the city of Gdynia (Pomeranian Region). The demonstrator area is characterised by 55 MV/LV SSs, 38 km of power MV, 102 km of LV lines which supply near 14.700 customers.
June 27-28, 2016 · InnoGrid2020+
Location: Centre for fine Arts, Brussels – Belgium
Date: 27 – 28 June 2016
Link of the event: http://innogrid2020.eu/
InnoGrid2020+ has become the not-to-be-missed EU event on innovation in electricity networks. The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) and the European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids (EDSO) will focus the 2016 edition on “Digital Energy”.
This year’s conference will address the innovation paradigm behind the distribution and transmission interface. It also will take stock of on-going R&D projects. Finally, it will address the question of how regulation could facilitate innovation in the new power system. Beyond engaging presentations, panel sessions and debates, InnoGrid2020+ will run a poster and exhibition session, enabling participants to interact and share knowledge and best practices.
We invite you to attend the InnoGrid2020+ event where you can have more information about the UPGRID project. On the Project Session II “Taking Stock of On-going Projects: Knowledge Sharing for progress” Mr Roberto González Sainz-Maza (Iberdrola) will present the UPGRID project; and during the poster session two posters will be available.
June 1-3, 2016 · CIM Users Group · 2016 Meeting - Europe
Location: Hotel NH Collection Amsterdam Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky – Amsterdam, Netherlands
Date: 1-3 June, 2016
Link of the event: http://meetings.cimug.org/2016/amsterdam/
The legend of the event is “Using CIM to Create and Support the Data-Driven Utility”. As the event states, utilities are now collecting and storing vast amounts of data regarding their operational systems with the goal of using that data to improve reliability, service metrics, customer satisfaction and asset utilization. Many existing legacy systems are isolated and fragmented lacking a unified approach to data management and resulting in barriers to interoperability and integration. Many utilities are adapting a data-driven architecture for enterprise integration based on the IEC CIM standards as the means by they can turn this data into information that can be more easily used improve the utility enterprise’s performance.
The conformance of the CIM framework is one of the pillars that UPGRID is committed with in order to ensure the interoperability, scalability and replicability of the innovative technological solutions that are being developed and integrated in the Demonstrators deployed in the project. That is the reason CIM was chosen to ensure standardized data exchange between software modules that are being developed within those four country Demonstrators.
CIM will be used within the following areas:
- MV and LV state estimation
- Events/alarms supervision and DER management in LV network
- Load and generation forecasting
- Fault location tools
- Enhanced outage management and support for maintenance crews
- Design of service for Demand Side Management
- Smart analytics of individual load curves for distribution and retail business
- Design of a neutral market access platform
Special attention will be given to smart metering data utilization, as AMI is deployed in all participating distribution system operators. Different data models have been used in AMI implementations (COSEM for PRIME PLC and ANSI C.12 for OSGP) and IEC 61968-9 is a common denominator that allows specialised software modules to acquire and process smart metering data, regardless of the AMI physical data model. Examples of COSEM – ANSI C.12 – IEC 61968-9 translations will be shown.
Jose Antonio Rodriguez Mondéjar (Comillas, Spain) and Aleksander Babs (Institute of Power Engineering, Poland) will be presenting the UPGRID activity on the CIM domain taking part in the session “Distribution – AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) and DER (Distributed Energy Resources)”, under the title of “CIM as the reference data model for the UPGRID project”
May 19, 2016 · CIGRE • IV Technical Workshop on R&D
Location: Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid
Date: 19 May 2016
Link of event: http://www.cigre.es/
The IV Technical Workshop on R&D has included presentations and discussions about “Monitoring systems and assets management”, “New materials and its application on electric networks”, “HVDC systems (equipment, networks…) and FACTS”, and “Integration of DER (Smart Grids)”. Mr Roberto González (Iberdrola) has presented the UPGRID proyect in this last section.
May 19, 2016 · CIGRE • IV Technical Workshop on R&D
Location: Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid
Date: 19 May 2016
Link of event: http://www.cigre.es/
The IV Technical Workshop on R&D has included presentations and discussions about “Monitoring systems and assets management”, “New materials and its application on electric networks”, “HVDC systems (equipment, networks…) and FACTS”, and “Integration of DER (Smart Grids)”. Mr Roberto González (Iberdrola) has presented the UPGRID proyect in this last section.
April 18-21, 2016 · GE International Software Summit
Location: Hilton Palace · Sorrento, Italy
Date: 18 – 21 April 2016
Link of the event: http://gegridsolutionssummit.com/
The GE International Software Summit Series has been running every year in 3 different locations worldwide with the idea of sharing knowledge, experiences, innovations and success stories with colleagues from around the world, and includes attendees, speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors from companies that are at the forefront of innovation in the industry, being a great opportunity to network with the industry leaders.
UPGRID has submitted an abstract untitled “Real smart grid: advanced operation and exploitation of LV networks” to this International SUMMIT describing how distribution companies are now able to go one step beyond towards an advanced real time representation and management of the LV network. This paper will show how the managing of monitored events coming from the Smart Meters will improve the LV Network Operations. Some of the improvements to be expected are grid failure and service restoration, outage prediction, asset management, network planning optimization, unbalance detection, fraud spot localization or structural problem identification. The main deliverables are: A LV network management system; The system will receive the information coming from the Smart Meters which will be utilised by the system to manage outages and planned interventions in the network; Interaction between different systems will be required. One of the main challenges will be the efficient real time management of all these data flows.
UPGRID project is based on a real field deployment in the metropolitan Bilbao area, This will allow measuring the quality, consistency and relevance of different data evaluating the impact on the global quality of the grid, together with the most suitable operation strategies.
April 5-6, 2016 · Grid Analytics Europe 2016
Location: Novotel Amsterdam City, The Netherlands Date: 5 – 6 April 2016 Link of the event: http://www.gridanalytics-europe.com/ As smart meter and smart grid deployments continue to gain momentum, demand for big data analytics capability to better manage grid operations and plan network investment is at an all-time high. But securing adequate internal investment, building an analytics organisation that transcend established silos, selecting and implementing the right analytics platform, and effectively managing the large volumes of complex and unstructured data flooding the network to provide real-time, predictive and highly actionable intelligence to the wider organisation, is not without its challenges! Grid Analytics Europe 2016 draws together 120+ Data Science and Domain experts for a review of the most innovative analytics implementations within the European smart utility environment. Over 2 intensive days you will hear from 12+ utility front runners, gain important insights into their lessons learnt, and sneak previews of their management approved roadmaps.
Jan 28, 2016 · UPGRID Consortium General Assembly, in Lisbon (Portugal)
Jan 28, 2016 · DISCERN 3rd External Workshop – The role of KPIs in evaluating Smart Grid Projects
Location: Reinaissance Brussels Hotel, Rue du Parnasse 19, 1050 Brussels
Date: Thursday, 28th January 2016
Speaker: Irene Aguado (ITE)
Link of the event: http://discern.eu/events/workshopIV.html
Summary
The workshop was divided into three main sessions. During the first session “How KPIs are used in existing projects and lessons learnt” representatives from DISCERN, DREAM, IDE4L, UPGRID and evolvDSO projects presented their KPIs experience. Most of the projects are (like UPGRID) in the initial stages of the KPIs work, specifically the KPIs definition. Only the DISCERN project has completed the final stage of KPI calculation. They share their experience and they were really open to answer other projects’ questions.
The second session was focused in the “application of KPIs by different elements of the industry”. Representatives from the Italian Regulatory Authority, Siemens AG and Enel explained their point of view about the KPIs application.
The last session was the workshop session. During this last session all the participants worked in groups to discuss how the KPIs definition should be and what useful information a KPI calculation guide should have to help new Smart Grid projects, based on a preliminary work prepared by DISCERN team. This last session was really interesting to share points of view regarding the main areas of KPIs definition (cost, technical, societal, etc.), the KPIs attributes (formula, contextualization, units, etc.) and the kind of information it may be useful to find in a KPI calculation guide.
Available Materials
- Download the presentation “How KPIs are used in existing projects and lessons learnt: UPGRID”
- The meeting report and more workshop materials are available in http://discern.eu/events/workshopIV.html
Nov 26-27, 2015 · 3rd IGREENGrid-SiNGULAR-SuSTAINABLE Global Joint Conference
Mar 31 - Apr 1, 2015 · InnoGrid2020+ 4th Annual Conference
InnoGrid2020+ 4th Annual Conference provides a unique opportunity to take stock of the content and direction of R&D with European added-value, as well as to address some of the main challenges still being faced.
Available Material
Poster describing the UPGRID project. Available for download here
Poster describing the demos in the project. Available for download here
For any information about this project, please contact us
Mr. Roberto González Sainz-Maza, Iberdrola
UPGRID project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 646.531