Sustainable Consumer engagement and demand response

Project Information

SENDER

Grant agreement ID: 957755

DOI

10.3030/957755

Project closed

EC signature date 11 September 2020

Start date 1 October 2020

End date 31 March 2025

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 6 619 688,73

EU contribution

€ 5 836 574,96

Coordinated by

SMART INNOVATION NORWAY AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SENDER (Sustainable Consumer engagement and demand response)

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2025-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

As the EU moves towards sustainable energy, co-creation processes are the future for the design of energy service markets. This entails a shift in the balance of power, turning customers into a new generation of collaborators and putting them at the heart of the energy sector. The EU-funded SENDER project will develop energy service applications for proactive demand response (DR), home automation, convenience, and security mechanisms. By engaging customers in a co-creation process, the project will shift DR from a reactive to a proactive approach. Consumer data will be collected and processed to identify typical consumption patterns, mirror them by digital twins (DTs) based on artificial intelligence technologies and aggregate the DTs' supply/demand characteristics.

Therefore, the core issue being addressed by SENDER is how to tap the huge, unused potential of demand-side flexibility from households based on co-creation processes with consumers, innovative technologies, new business models, and targeted replication activities all over Europe.

The societal importance of SENDER is reflected by putting consumers at the center of the electricity market. Consumer engagement strategies are applied to actively involve consumers into the development of household-related information and communication technologies (ICT) innovations, business models that strengthen the consumer role, and energy management systems (EMS) that increase the renewable energy sources (RES) hosting capacity of the grid. A dedicated co-creation steering group with consumer integration has the potential to increase the number and types of consumers engaged in DR across Europe.

The SENDER project is focused on:
• Developing innovative DR and smart home solutions by placing consumers at the center of the project using a co-creation approach.
• Integrating more renewables into the electricity system by applying innovative DR tools.
• Using consumer data to improve behavior predictions to create consumer DTs and DR tools.
• Establishing interoperability of system components by testing them in a virtual lab prior to implementing DT and DR tools at three pilot sites targeting mainly households.
• Developing sustainable business models and a roadmap for the deployment of the solution after the project lifecycle using a replicability study approach.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

• Successful conduct of three well attended and documented co-creation workshops at the demo-sites.
• Clear definition and representation of the SENDER system architecture based on the smart grid architecture model (SGAM).
• Agreements for DR contracts between consumers and distribution system operators (DSOs)/aggregators have been developed.
• The internet of things (IoT) supervision package has been finalised.
• The building as a battery (BaaB) module has been developed.
• A data management plan as well as a security, safety and privacy protection action plan have been completed.
• We conducted four surveys with samples drawn from the general public that identified key consumer segments and their preferences for smart energy services.
• A new methodology for dis-aggregating the electric load of households from low-frequency energy consumption measurements has been developed.
• The Consumer Digital Twin was trained and applied individually per pilot site. Broad-scale replication was investigated and reported along with valuable experience from the pilot sites’ implementation in D8.5 Replication booklet.
• An exchange with the ISO standardisation body was completed to use the SENDER digital twin approach as a standardised use case for the energy market.
• Load and distributed energy resources (DER) forecasting tools have been developed.
• A Flexibility Profiling Framework has been developed, documented and lab tested.
• Initial obstacles and requirements for policy coordination regarding the project implementation have been identified.
• The SENDER mobile application has been developed and released on multiple app stores
• The three pilot sites achieved to engage 399 households, carrying out 241 successful installations of DR and monitoring systems
• 4 Use cases have been correctly tested with only 3% dropouts
• 1212 Demand Response events have been activated through SENDER system
• SENDER presented its solutions at various BRIDGE working group events.
• The IPR management process became established and served to discover relevant IPR back- and foreground in a systematic manner; IPR implications of an identified replication approach has been analysed.
• A detailed communication and dissemination plan for the SENDER project was set-up; web and social media channels continuously presented project updates and results.
• Project results became published in a number of scientific and broader audience journals.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The SENDER consortium partners developed all beyond SotA solutions outlined in the first period reporting. The interoperability of the solutions became tested in a virtual lab and the global integrated platform prior to the implementation at the demonstration sites which started.
The project serves to generate impact in various categories:
• Replicability: The implementation of the SENDER solutions started at all demonstration sites, which also serves to create a replication booklet and guide that will increase replicability on European level.
• Socio-economics: The consumer engagement process has proven to be very successful within the SENDER project and created a high consumer motivation. Together with SENDER sister projects a publication on best practices for consumer engagement has been published which is a valuable asset for future projects touching the same domain.
• Environment: The measurement of quantitative flexibility provision to the grid is currently prepared during the implementation activities at the demonstration sites. Therefore, related results will be available following a longer period of operation.
• Market Transformation: The market-transforming potential of the SENDER approach has been presented at various events. Based on the analysis of the outcomes at the three demonstration sites qualitative statements on the consumer market integration will be derived. Initial experiences at the demonstration sites show a high interest of consumers for an active project and, therefore, market integration.
• Policy: The SENDER consortium is in contact with a standardisation agency to support the set-up of a standard for digital twins in the electricity industry. To prepare the provision of recommendations to national and EU regulatory and political bodies, the SENDER consortium conducted a detailed analysis of regulatory and political barriers for a full project result implementation. The outcome was used to developed a questionnaire that was recently sent out to representatives of some 60 European organisations from which replies are pending.

Screenshot of the SENDER website