A recent study by Energinet.dk and the Danish Energy Association estimates that the total costs of a smart grid solution able to handle a 2025 Danish power system with 50% wind power is 6.1 billion DKK smaller compared to a solution without a smart grid. In the smart grid solution, harvesting the inherent flexibility potential in power consuming units plays a vital part and requires extensive efforts on research and development.
The five year vision of the iPower platform is to develop an intelligent power system where production controlled demand replaces and supplements demand controlled production. The increased flexibility in demand side will therefore facilitate the power system integration of fluctuating renewable energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaic and pave the way to the future smart grid.
The iPower platform takes advantage of being located in the Danish power system which has the highest share of fluctuating renewable power production in the world and the challenge of integrating yet larger amounts of wind power. It builds upon the experiences gained and work done in ForskEL projects such as Edison, FlexCom and FlexPower, EU projects such as DERlab/DERRI, EcoGrid EU, Wilmar and TWENTIES, development projects at the industry partners and a high number of ongoing or completed PhD projects.
With a collaboration of 32 partners, universities and research institutions as well as industrial companies from various countries, the iPower platform links research and demonstration to actual product development by specifying methods, technologies and requirements for smart grid products, and enables the industry partners to become first movers in a new and growing world market.
The project is organized in eight parallel work packages covering:
Project management (WP0)
Demand response (WP1 and WP2)
Distribution grid operation (WP3)
Control and market operation (WP4)
Socio-economic and investor evaluation (WP5)
Consumer behavior (WP6) and Dissemination (WP7)
Modelling, simulation and prototype tests will be carried out at world-class test facilities at DTU, Danish Technological Institute and real-world demonstration. PhD and Postdoc studies will cover advanced methodology development. The concepts and technologies will be tested and demonstrated by the industrial partners with support from the scientific partners. Scientific work will be carried out in close cooperation with companies and guided by results and lessons learned from experimental activities.
Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy at the Technical University of Denmark (Risø DTU) is the coordinator and has the overall responsibility that the iPower platform achieves the desired results; whereas Center for Electric Technology (CET) and Danish Technological Institute (DTI) are responsible for coordinating the scientific part and innovation part respectively. The iPower platform has been granted a support of 60 million DKK over the next 5 years from SPIR - Strategic Platform for Innovation and Research. SPIR is an initiative of the Danish Council for Strategic Research and the Danish Council for Technology and Innovation.
IPower Platform
www.ipower-net.dk
Contact at CET
Professor Jacob Østergaard, CET, DTU Electrical Engineering
PostDoc Shi You, CET, DTU Electrical Engineering