Project: Demand response for grid-friendly quasi-autarkic energy cooperatives

The energy transition towards (fluctuating) renewable electricity generation requires more flexible demand response. This demand response is possible, due to decreasing storage prices, flexible thermal loads, electric vehicle charging schedules etc., but it requires intelligent coordination. Since centralized solutions are intractable due to privacy concerns, limited computational scalability and the individuals’ concern to maintain decisional autonomy, this project proposes decentralized coordination in quasi-autark energy cooperatives, striving for operational energy balance. This German-Dutch research project develops and evaluates the coordination mechanisms and the technological platform for the energy cooperative, to achieve cost efficiency or maximum autarky by shared exploitation of storage and other flexible resources. A transnational energy market aims to further push cost efficiency when the two pilot cooperatives are more widely replicated and adopted in future scenarios.

Acronym GridFriends (Reference Number: 77562)
Duration 01/05/2016 - 30/04/2019
Project Topic Demand response coordination, storage and thermal loads, energy cooperatives, future energy markets
Network ERANet SmartGridPlus
Call ERA-Net Smart Grids Plus - Joint Call for Proposals

Project partner

Number Name Role Country
1 Stichting Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica Coordinator Netherlands
2 Fraunhofer ITWM Partner Germany
3 Evohaus GmbH Partner Germany
4 Metabolic Partner Netherlands
5 Stichting Schoonschip Partner Netherlands