Approach

The municipality of Capriasca installed a 30 kWp PV plant in the village of Lugaggia on the roof of the local kindergarten. The building is located on the edge of a residential area, mainly consisting of single-family houses. The self-consumption potential of the kindergarten is limited because most of the production takes place during school summer holidays when the local consumption is low.

AEM, the DSO serving the area, intends to promote the creation of a SCC named Lugaggia Innovation Community (LIC), connecting together the kindergarten and ten nearby houses.

The energy exchange inside the community will be compliant with existing laws regulating the Self Consumption Communities.

By creating the SCC, AEM aims at testing and verifying its capability to provide new energy services to its customers, by leveraging on two novel technical solutions provided by the Swiss companies Optimatik and Hive Power.

The first solution consists of a centralized energy management platform, which uses the existing smart meter infrastructure for sensing and actuation.

The second solution implements a decentralized control approach secured by blockchain technology and requires the installation of computing and controlling unit, connected to the smart meters.

To further increase the flexibility in the SCC, AEM will install a district-level storage system.

Goals

Help to assess the local flexibility potential and the different ways in which it could be exploited from a technical point of view.

Evaluate the needs and requirements to the realization of LIC in a real environment. The project aims to provide recommendations how to allow and facilitate the replicability and scalability of peer-to-peer self-consumption communities. In particular, with respect to the needs of the public interest, to ensure fair treatment of all stakeholders (especially in areal situations) and implement measures for the correct use of energy resources (avoid sporadic tips, excessive consumption, control of equipment with the mandatory announcement, etc.).

Evaluate the degree of knowledge or acceptance among the community stakeholders to be willing to participate in these new self-consumption communities; a living lab to test users’ acceptance will be set up.

Assess blockchain as a decentralized billing management method introduced by the utility.

Compare centralized vs decentralized load management methods from the DSO point of view (grid costs), energy consumption and economic point of view.