PowerMatching City, the first total-concept smart grid project, explained at T&D/Smart Grids Europe

Aug. 22, 2012 - PRLog -- The world’s first total-concept smart grid project, the PowerMatching City in the Netherlands, will be explained at the upcoming Transmission & Distribution/Smart Grids Europe in Amsterdam in October.  The event forms part of Metering, Billing/CRM Europe which will gather some 6500 utility professionals at what has become the largest industry event on the continent.  

Live smart grid project in The Netherlands
PowerMatching City is a live smart grid project involving 25 households in the Hoogkerk district in the northern part of The Netherlands. It has demonstrated that it is possible to create a smart grid with a corresponding market model, which enables consumers to freely exchange electricity, without compromising on comfort and convenience. This closed-circuit community represents a smart energy system on a micro-scale, offering  a blueprint for entire cities to be part of symbiotic energy generation and exchange.

The project was recently selected as the top sustainable project at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro.
 
First integrated smart grid solution
Albert van den Noort, smart grids specialist at DNV KEMA and projectmanager of PowerMatching City says the project started in 2007, “to demonstrate in practice how large shares of decentralized energy resources (DER) and demand response work under normal grid conditions. At that time, the development of smart grids was in the very early stage and the main efforts were focused on studies. During the execution of the first phase of the project we built the first integrated smart grid solution and demonstrated it in real life conditions.”

Challenges: speaking the same language
The PowerMatching City project manager says some of the most challenging aspects of the project were combining all the technologies involved in this project such as smart meters, hybrid heat pumps, microCHPS, electric vehicles and smart appliances, and making sure that all this equipment is interoperable. He continues:  “another big challenge was also to ensure that all partners and suppliers spoke the same language. In projects like PowerMatching City, it is essential that parties have the same understanding of what a smart grid is and how it should be realized.”  

Smart grids necessary
What is the next phase of the PowerMatching City?  DNV KEMA’s Albert van den Noort says:  “In phase 1, we proved that the smart grid works from a technical point of view. In phase 2, we want to demonstrate what kind of impact a smart grid has on the end-users by demonstrating new smart energy services.  We believe that smart grids play an essential role in our future energy system. We believe that the share of renewable energy will only increase and that end-users will increasingly provide in their own energy consumption. Smart grids are necessary to facilitate this.”

The partners and their roles in PowerMatching City Phase 2 are:
•   DNV KEMA: Project lead and consultancy on smart grid services and technologies
•   Essent/RWE: As energy supplier: development en demonstration of new energy services in a smart grid environment
•   Enexis: As grid operator: demonstrate the possibilities of capacity management
•   ICT Automatisering: Development of ICT Smart Grid solutions, as a system integrator
•   TNO: Development of the PowerMatcher
•   Gasunie: demonstration of the possibilities of gas appliances in smart grid environments
•   Universities of Delft and Eindhoven and Hanzehogeschool Groningen: Research on several smart grid topics in the project.

Several key role players in PowerMatching City will be speaking in the Transmission & Distribution/Smart Grids Europe and Metering, Billing/CRM Europe programme, including project-leading utility ENEXIS, DNV KEMA, the University of Eindhoven and TNO.

Event dates and location:
9-11 October 2012
Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands

Event website:  www.td-europe.eu