The project "NETFFICIENT: Energy and economic efficiency for today’s smart communities through integrated multi storage technologies" has been favorably evaluated (ranked #1) by the European Commission, with an excellent score both for scientific and socio-economic impacts. The project is a Horizon 2020 innovation action involving 13 European partners among enterprises and research centers, led by Ayesa Advanced Technologies (Spain).
NETFFICIENT will deploy and demonstrate innovative local storage technologies in a real electrical grid and will develop ICT tools to exploit the synergies between them, the smart grid and the citizens. The demonstration in real environments will be driven by five use cases covering low and medium voltage scenarios and a wide range of applications and functionalities. Viable business models will be defined for the cases and proposal for changes in regulations will be made. The consortium foresees the creation of an Energy Service Company-ESCO to exploit demonstrated business models after the project.
The role of CRS4 in the project is the development and application of an expert system for the forecast of electricity production from renewable sources and consumption from households and industrial activities, as essential variables for the management of storage systems and the stabilization of the electricity grid. The project activities will be carried out by the groups "Smart Energy Systems" led by Luca Massidda and "Environmental Science" led by Marino Marrocu (Dept. of Energy and Environment, directed by Ernesto Bonomi). The project also includes the research group of Alfonso Damiano from the University of Cagliari.
Initial collaboration started after a CRS4 expression of interest towards a partner search of Williams Grand Prix Engineering (UK, also project partner) through the CRS4 Office of Technology Transfer and the Enterprise Europe Network-EEN.