| Abstract |
Distributed Energy Resources (DER) is already used in
Europe (for instance wind farms or combined heat and
power mostly in industry). However there is a trade-off
between the benefits of DER and the adverse grid effects at
the transmission and even distribution level. This is
particularly true in areas where stochastic Renewable
Energy Sources (RES) are present such as the large wind
farms in the northern part of Europe.
Adverse grid effects are partly responsible for the relatively
limited development of RES. Much R&D has been devoted
to mitigate these adverse grid effects in the past. Most of
this R&D is aiming at developing new grid components
and management strategies. However these approaches
suggest that a comprehensive overhaul of the electrical grid
system is necessary in order to accommodate large amounts
of DER and RES.
A different R&D approach has been recently proposed by a
group of eight European utilities and has been accepted for
funding by the European Commission within its 6th R&D
Framework Program. This approach is implemented in the
Integrated Project named "The birth of a European
Distributed Energy Partnership that will help the largescale
implementation of distributed energy resources in
Europe" (EU-DEEP). The new approach does not require
upfront large modifications of the electrical grid, but relies
instead on existing technologies and practices. Both the
existing and the new approaches are nevertheless
complementary (see Fig. 1). Together with manufacturers, research organizations,
professionals, national regulators and a bank, the utilities
propose to remove, in five years, the most important
technical and non-technical barriers which prevent massive
deployment of DER in Europe. This partnership will
implement a demand-pull rather than technology-push
approach. By sharing market data and constructing a model
of the European demand, this approach allows to identify
demand segments which can benefit from DER solutions,
and foster the R&D required to adapt DER technologies to
the precise demand of the selected segments.
In order to validate this approach, a set of five demand
segments will be studied in three market sectors (industrial,
commercial and residential) for one or two types of DER
demands ("incremental-DER" from existing DER
applications, and/or "DER-breakthrough" from the study of
disruptive behaviours introduced by new trading
mechanisms). After a one-year experimental measurements
campaign to gather realistic data on the life cycle costs of
the candidate technologies, manufacturers should be in a
position to launch industrialization tasks of the most
promising DER solutions. In addition, regulatory bodies
should be able to release some of the barriers that still
prevent more DER solutions from reaching market
applications.
This new R&D approach applies to any DER technology,
including RES. It has the potential to help identify "fast
track options" for large-scale penetration of RES in Europe.
With a budget of approximately 29 M€ (of which 15 M€
are provided by the European Commission) it should
produce complete results for the first of the five selected
market segments by mid-2007. |
