SYNERGY: The Big Data Platform and AI Marketplace designed for the Electricity Data Value Chain

Interview with Dr. Fenareti Lampathaki, Technical Coordinator of the SYNERGY project

by GECO Global & SUITE5

The SYNERGY project has now progressed to the deployment stage, and as part of that, has released the beta version of the SYNERGY Platform, a cutting-edge Big Data Platform and AI Marketplace, that targets any stakeholder of the electricity data value chain.

Dr. Fenareti Lampathaki, the Technical Coordinator of the SYNERGY project and Technical Director at Suite5 Data Intelligence Solutions, has shared more details about the SYNERGY Platform and the next steps.

Could you describe in a few words the innovation of the SYNERGY Big Data Platform?

The innovations brought forward by the SYNERGY Platform can be summarized into: (I) efficient data management of previously disperse and non-interoperable energy data, (II) trustful data sharing within the electricity data value chain, and (III) actionable data-driven insights extracted by data analytics pipelines that are fully configurable (by data scientists or technical/business users). In particular, through its data collection, sharing and analytics functionalities, significant challenges such as secure data management, data interoperability, lack of analytics skills, can be effectively addressed in the SYNERGY Platform. In addition, through its Data & AI Marketplace, the SYNERGY Platform allows the electricity data value chain stakeholders to share their data assets (either original datasets or derivative data or pre-trained analytics models) in a reliable and trustworthy manner, powered by Distributed Ledger Technologies, and effectively leverage the paradigm shift in data generation and data ownership in the electricity data value chain.

As depicted in the following figure, the SYNERGY Platform consists of different Data Services Bundles that have well-defined interfaces to ensure their seamless integration, namely:

The Data Collection Services Bundle that allows the configuration and scheduled/on-demand execution of data ingestion while taking care of data mapping and transformation, according to the Common Information Model, and quality assurance by applying different data cleaning rules. Data ingestion may occur in the cloud, on-premise (through a dedicated server edition of the SYNERGY On-Premise Environment for stakeholders that are concerned about end-to-end data security or do not wish their data to leave their premises) and in the edge (through the edge edition of the SYNERGY On-Premise Environment installed on gateways).
The Data Security Services Bundle that enables the definition and enforcement of (attribute-based) access policies on any data asset (e.g. dataset, pre-trained model, analytics pipeline result) according to the preferences of its provider. It also allows anonymization of personal or sensitive data and encryption of data (that are ingested from the server on-premise environment);
Data Sharing Services Bundle, that encapsulates the Data & AI Marketplace (for sharing any data asset), and manages the licenses and IPR of the different data assets and their derivative data assets. It is also responsible for handling the lifecycle of the smart contracts signed among all involved stakeholders in order to legitimately share a data asset.
Data Matchmaking Services Bundle with faceted and advanced search functionalities over any data asset, along with a smart recommendation system on data assets and data asset providers.
Data Analytics Services Bundle that enables any stakeholder to: (a) design an analytics pipeline (utilizing data they own or have acquired), (b) execute it in the cloud, in the server on-premise environment (if the data have not left the premises of a stakeholder) and in the edge, and (c) visualize the results upon configuring the information to be displayed in a chart. In addition to a number of machine learning and deep learning algorithms supported in an out-of-the-box manner, as adopted by popular AI libraries (e.g. sk-learn, Spark MlLib, Tensorflow), a set of pre-trained energy data analytics blocks is also offered.
Data Governance Services Bundle that look into data lineage aspects and handle the CIM lifecycle (since changes can be performed at any moment on the “live” Common Information Model without affecting the platform operation).
Platform Management Services Bundle that supports the orchestration of all services offered by the platform and addresses the underlying security and identity management aspects. It also allows the different stakeholders to configure how they want to retrieve data or results for use by their legacy or operational systems, through fully customizable APIs exposed on demand by the SYNERGY Platform.

More details on the SYNERGY Integrated Platform from the user perspective can be found in the SYNERGY Deliverable D3.4 “SYNERGY Integrated Platform & Open APIs – Beta Release”.

What is different about the SYNERGY Big Data Platform compared to other platforms out there that perform similar functions?

In contrast to generic-purpose big data platforms that appear in the market, the SYNERGY Platform brings in a strong domain expertise that is manifested through: (a) the SYNERGY Common Information Model that effectively models the data requirements and interactions of the electricity data value chain stakeholders, and underpins the overall Platform operation, and (b) a set of pre-trained analytics that essentially offer readily available solutions (in the form of trained models or analytics pipelines) for specific domain-related problems, i.e. Demand Forecasting, Flexibility Forecasting, Generation Forecasting, Occupants Behaviour and Comfort Profiling, and Predictive and Preventive Maintenance. The SYNERGY Platform also guarantees that a strict Know-Your-Customer policy is applied in order to ensure that only stakeholders of the electricity data value chain are granted access.

When will the next version of the platform be launched and do you maybe have a timeline for things coming up that we can share with everyone?

The SYNERGY Beta Platform is already deployed at: https://synergy-bigdata.eu/ and any stakeholder is welcome to register. Since access is limited to the consortium members at the moment, external early adopters are expected to be approved to access the SYNERGY Platform in Spring 2022.

The next release of the SYNERGY Platform is planned to be launched by the end of 2021, bringing a set of new functionalities and improvements to the user experience.

Where do you envision SYNERGY Big Data Platform to be in the next few years?

The SYNERGY Platform aspires to become a one-stop-shop for electricity data value chain stakeholders that aims at attaching value to their own data assets, at unveiling insights they could not previously acquire, and at reaping the benefits of the reuse of their own data assets.

Offline testing of the optimization of Power Purchase Agreements between RES Operators and Electricity Retailers, towards Greening Electricity Supply and reducing associated tariffs and costs.

by CUERVA & COBRA

Demo case 9 aims to promote the retailing and supply of green electricity, enabling the retailers’ transition to a Sustainable Energy commercialisation, whilst optimising the users’ tariff. The demo case, led by CUERVA (Electricity Retailer) and COBRA (RES Plant Operator), could be used as a tool for feasibility assessments for PPAs, defining the optimal PV power and users’ tariff in the long-term, prior to the signature of the PPA itself. For such purposes, the tool will use energy generation profiles and energy demand profiles for a certain study area. Current details on tariff price information, hourly tariff periods and wholesale electricity market prices were used to guarantee an accurate representation of the situation.

Cuerva and Cobra have defined all the requirements and confirmed the work plan for a successful deployment of this demo case, firstly carrying out an offline test of the tools used in this demo case. This demo case offline test consisted of:

A long-term climatic characterisation using 25 years of data records of the location where the PV plant would be located. This dataset contained several climatic variables to estimate the PV generation profile in the long-term per unit power.
Long-term generation profile prediction per kWp. The results of this simulation can be seen in Figure 1 below on a daily basis.
2-year tariff-divided electricity consumption profile in kWh, a part of which is shown in Figure 2 below, also on a monthly basis. Additionally, information on tariff prices and hourly periods are used to calculate the total electricity expenditure.
Projections of demand increase/decrease over the period, yearly CPI and panel degradation are used to create a full-period demand-generation coupling.
Solar PV CAPEX and OPEX curves information are used to correctly size the required power plant that will minimize the cost for the consumer while guaranteeing a certain return on investment.
The process is repeated several times with small parameter variations to obtain confidence intervals for the PV plant capacity size

This demo case allows showcasing the benefits that could be achieved between an energy community stakeholders and renewable energy investors, managing projects that benefit all parties involved. The use of real-life climatic information and consumption profiles ensures the viability of the tool for future projects, while the open-to-user definition of tariff periods and prices allows the tool to be used in almost any combination of circumstances and countries.

SYNERGY at Enlit 2021: The potentialities of SYNERGY Big Data Platform

– Interview with Ugo Stecchi, the Project Coordinator of the SYNERGY project

by Ioana-Emilia Badea [GECO Global]

SYNERGY will attend Enlit Europe 2021 in Milan, Italy, at the end of this month. The three-day event will take place at Fiera di Milano from the 30th of November to the 2nd of December. Enlit, formerly known as European Utility Week, brings together collaboration and innovation to address some of the world’s most critical energy issues. SYNERGY is delighted to be a part of the Enlit community and to be able to attend the event in-person to present the projects’ development and the SYNERGY Big Data Platform.

Ugo Stecchi of ETRA I+D, SYNERGY’s project coordinator, provides us with a sneak peek at what SYNERGY contributes to Enlit and the hopes for the coming year.

What will SYNERGY be showcasing at Enlit more specifically?

The SYNERGY Big Data Platform’s capabilities will be showcased at Enlit. In particular, we’d like to share our achievements in terms of platform performance which can offer some crucial functionalities concerning interoperability, data sharing mechanisms, pre-trained analytics, AI big data sharing, etc. Moreover, additional services for final users, belonging to different categories of energy stakeholders, have been developed on an upper layer of the same platform. They were created to match with the most recent requirements of the energy market services, exploiting the platform’s tremendous potential, and they will be shown at Enlit as well.

What does SYNERGY hope to get out of the Enlit Europe 2021 event?

**Ugo Stecchi – Project Manager Etra I+D**

It is a great opportunity for us to be present at this event, likely the first big physical event in the energy domain after a long season of virtual meetings and isolation. We do hope to share our partial results achieved so far and receive profitable and effective feedbacks from engaged stakeholders and other colleagues and partners that are going to participate. We did a great job in the first period of the project, we are very motivated to share it with the rest of the scientific community, but also with the industrial world and Enlit is the place to be. We’d like also to promote our upcoming open call, it will be published at the beginning of 2022 and we hope to have onboard a talented start-up to collaborate with.

What is your hope for next year, in terms of in-person events?

Being able to return to a normal pre-covid situation is what everyone hopes for the near future and hopefully next year we would be able to recover the classic habits we initially use to design and set up the concept of SYNERGY.

It is not just a matter of having back presential meetings within our consortium, (or, why not, with the granted subjects from the Open Call too) that would be great news, but also of being able to get back in direct touch with other actors to exchange results, knowledge and experiences and contribute to the common development of the state of the art in this sector. On the other hand, SYNERGY has a strong vocation for interacting with external stakeholders through various mechanisms and tools; being able to cooperate face to face with these subjects would certainly be of great benefit to the results of the project.

You can meet us in Milan in person, in the EU project Zone, to find out more about our project and to discuss with us potential collaboration opportunities. Register on circdata.com to get your free three-day guest pass for the event.

The SYNERGY Platform: Grupo Cuerva starts uploading datasets to test and validate use cases

After 22 months since the beginning of SYNGERY’s activity, Grupo Cuerva, one of the Spanish demo-partner for the project, has started the uploading of its datasets in the SYNERGY Platform. This will be used to test and validate several Use Cases related to:

PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) between renewable generators and supply points.
Prosumer flexibility in the Low Voltage Grid, from the point of view of the aggregator and from the DSO.
Grid Asset Management optimisation for predictive maintenance of Grupo Cuerva’s critical assets.

To test it, a complete suite of datasets will be included in the SYNERGY Platform, and it will comprise:

Full LV&MV Digital Twin of the demo electric grid (La Calahorra, Granada), with the location per phase of all the supply points.
Electrical consumption and generation data of all the Smart meters deployed in the demo.
Retailer data of the supply points: tariffs, contracted power, etc.
High-resolution electric data of the devices located in the secondary substation: voltages, currents, active and reactive power, etc.

Thanks to the SYNERGY Platform, all the personal information regarding the supply points will be anonymised and secured and will be normalised into the Common Information Model (CIM) developed during the SYNERGY Project.

Cuerva is one of the leading business companies in the province of Granada. Its business areas comprise all electricity sector activities, namely electric power generation, distribution, and commercialization. The company also has in-depth knowledge of and wide experience in the operation and maintenance of electrical installations.

Thanks to its ongoing commitment to efficient working practices ever since it first began operating 80 years ago, the company has consolidated its position and has become one of the leading companies in the energy sector with an extremely successful reputation.

Open Call coming soon!

The SYNERGY project will launch an Open Call soon for cascade funding across different projects that make use of the SYNERGY Big Data Platform and Analytics Marketplace and are deployed in the SYNERGY demonstration sites. The aim is to enlarge the outreach of the core big data platform and analytics offering to be delivered by the SYNERGY consortium and engage relevant organizations in the development of innovative and added-value energy services that will complement those that will be offered as part of the SYNERGY implementation.

Stay tuned for more !

SYNERGY’s Asset Management Tool Suite

by Angelina Syrri [ICCS]

SYNERGY aims to deliver an Asset Management Tool Suite, consisting of four applications, which targets network and RES plant Operators. All four applications develop advanced grid-level analytics for optimized network and asset management services.

The prototype version of the applications will be released shortly and is well documented in the public deliverable D5.2 which reports all the implemented functionalities. On that account, the Tool Suite is designed to exploit the SYNERGY Big Data Platform and AI marketplace to obtain various smart meter data, SCADA data, portfolio analytics and fault statistics.

The Asset Management Tool Suite will be progressively updated, enhanced and validated during the demonstration phase of the project, where SYNERGY collaborating network and RES operators will be providing data, network information and feedback to support the development but also gain insights from the applications.

Any DSO, TSO or RES plant Operator who is interested in using such applications in the future, would have to register as a user in the SYNERGY platform and make accessible relevant datasets.

A glimpse of the application’s capabilities is provided below:

Infrastructure Sizing and Grid Planning application implements different features that target the operation and planning responsible operators of DSOs and TSOs, with the objective of providing valuable insights in terms of capacity and sizing requirements of network assets. The application utilizes available historical data and statistics such as expected next year forecasts of peak demand/generation data to create stochastic scenarios of demand and generation and perform power flow calculations to provide suggestions for optimal sizing and planning.

Flexibility based Network Management and DSO-TSO Common Operational Scheduling application implements all necessary features to allow network operators to operate their networks and schedule the available resources including flexible demand for the intra-day and day ahead in a coordinated manner. By exploiting all available data, including the flexibility potential of aggregators’ portfolios, the application facilitates the optimal scheduling of the flexible assets by TSOs and DSOs who aim to request specific congestion management and balancing services.

Advanced Performance Monitoring/Forecasting and Predictive Maintenance application targets the management of RES plants by ensuring their optimal operation, predictive maintenance and proactive avoidance of equipment faults. The tool steps on the forecasting and predictive analytics baseline algorithms and appropriate machine learning techniques towards identifying in real-time predictive maintenance needs, increasing PV technology reliability and efficiency and improving power trading functions on the plant operator side.

Asset Management Optimization for Power Grids application implements different features that target the maintenance responsible operators of DSOs and TSOs, with the objective of providing different models that optimize the maintenance management by enriching the available data with the results of a number of analytics and forecasts.

SYNERGY for a DSO – HEDNO’s story

by HEDNO

Big data and their exploitation in the energy sector are expected to bring a new era contributing to radical changes over Network Operation. The development of appropriate tools for the exploitation of data, collected from various sources including OT and IT systems, along with strong analytics and new algorithms, are expected to support DSO operation, bringing new capabilities and potential new business opportunities. The SYNERGY project offers an excellent environment for the development, testing, validation of innovative solutions, combining tool development and demonstration.

To achieve this goal, HEDNO as a demonstration leader supports and coordinates all project demo activities in close collaboration with all project partners. HEDNO is involved in the integration of distribution network operations and relevant IT systems in preparation for the pilot’s implementation across Greece.

In more detail, HEDNO will evaluate the provided technical solutions and will provide data and expertise for the use cases about integration and interoperability, with legacy DSO systems and data. The aim is to further examine the possible exploitation of the developed platform, under certain use cases scenarios related to DSO operation in the energy market. Especially in the Greek demo activities, HEDNO, in close cooperation with the other demo end users, IPTO, ELIN-VERD and EPA, that cover all the stakeholders in the energy value chain of the Greek energy market, examines demo cases covering all major business and operational activities such as:

Innovative Flexibility-based Network Management,
Common Operation Scheduling between TSO-DSO for advanced operation and flexibility exploitation,
new Asset Management and Planning approaches in order to improve network operation, Resilience and Power Quality,
Portfolio Analytics for energy services providers and retailers,
Flexibility segmentation, classification and clustering towards VPP configuration for demand response and
Local Flexibility Sharing for Self-Consumption Optimization at Local Community Level.

In collaboration with IPTO and ICCS, HEDNO has already contributed significantly to the development of flexibility exploitation mechanisms, introducing an operational processes map for TSO-DSO coordination. Furthermore, significant input related to end-users has been provided to the tool developers for building tools related to the realization and execution of the demo cases where HEDNO participates, and mostly related to asset management. For the latter, HEDNO has many expectations, since it will combine various data sources such as fault databases, inspection reports, active data collection sources such as thermal camera imaging and historical inspection, and maintenance records. HEDNO has already provided test data for all the above-mentioned data categories, in order to be fed in the data platform and support the development of analytics for predictive maintenance and reliability increase. In addition, for the scope of the project demo execution, HEDNO has selected an area of interest in the Attica region, providing sample data for network topology, equipment and related assets deployed in the field. HEDNO is planning to provide additional data from its smart metering infrastructure and support the operation of all the applications.

To summarize, the extension of the operational deployment of innovative applications that support big data exploitation within the SYNERGY project is expected to add significant value to network operations and strengthen stakeholder cooperation, resulting in increased efficiency, increased innovation, and increased excellence in the energy sector.

SYNERGY Platform’s conceptual architecture

by UBITECH

The design process of the overall conceptual architecture of the SYNERGY platform was an iterative process where multiple iterations were performed by the consortium members towards the formulation of a concrete and solid architecture design.

The design process started from the extensive analysis of the collected SYNERGY user and business requirements that are stemming directly from the end-users as representatives of the electricity data value chain and stakeholders of the SYNERGY platform. The results of the analysis provided the basis for the design specifications of the core components of the SYNERGY platform along with the list of offered functionalities from each specific component. The designed components, 58 in total, were properly combined into a set of well-defined workflows, 11 in total, in which the various components are interacting to enable the realisation of the aspired SYNERGY platform’s offerings to each stakeholder of the platform. Furthermore, the designed components were also organised into data-driven services bundles, 8 in total, where each service bundle operates with a clear context and holds a distinct role in the platform’s architecture providing a specific set of offerings to the SYNERGY platform.

Taking into consideration the defined use cases and elicited requirements, the constraints and barriers identified during the socio-economic and regulatory analysis, as well as the requirements extracted by the energy data landscaping activities, the overall conceptual architecture of the SYNERGY platform was formulated. The overall conceptual architecture is a multi-layered architecture that can be conceptually divided into 3 main layers as depicted in Figure 1:

The SYNERGY Cloud Infrastructure that consists of: (a) the Core Big Data Management Platform that incorporates the essential Energy Big Data Platform and the AI Analytics Marketplace, and (b) the Secure Experimentation Playgrounds (SEP) which offer the isolated and secure environments in the SYNERGY cloud infrastructure for each organisation to execute big data analytics.
The On-Premise Environments (OPE) that incorporates the server environment and the edge environments which are executed in the energy stakeholders’ premises. The On-Premise Environments are constantly communicating with the SYNERGY Cloud Infrastructure to deliver their offerings in a secure and trusted manner.
The SYNERGY Energy Apps Portfolio that is composed of a set of applications suitable for the needs of: (a) DSOs (Distribution System Operators), TSOs (Transmission System Operators) and RES (Renewable Energy Sources) Operators, (b) Electricity Retailers and Aggregators and (c) Facility Managers and ESCOs (Energy Service Companies).

Figure 1: SYNERGY 3-Layered High-level Architecture

In addition to the 3 main layers, the high-level architecture consists of 8 data-driven services bundles, in which the various designed components are organised. These services bundles are interacting through well-defined interfaces to ensure their seamless integration and operation within the SYNERGY integrated platform. The SYNERGY Services Bundles are as follows:

The Data Collection Services Bundle which undertakes the configuration of the data check-in process by the data provider in the Core Big Data Management Platform and its proper execution in the SYNERGY Cloud Infrastructure and/or the On-Premise Environments. In terms of components, is composed of the Data Handling Manager, the Matching Prediction Engine, Data Ingestion Service, the Mapping & Transformation Service and the Cleaning Service.
The Data Security Services Bundle which is responsible for the security and safeguarding aspects of the overall SYNERGY platform through different ways such as data anonymisation, data encryption and an access control mechanism. In terms of components, is composed of the Anonymisation service, the Encryption Engine and the Access Policy Engine.
The Data Sharing Services Bundle which provides the data and AI analytics marketplace functionalities of the SYNERGY Core Big Data Management Platform with secure data sharing and data trading offerings based on Distributed Ledger Technologies. In terms of components, it composed of the Data & AI Marketplace, the Contract Lifecycle Manager and the Remuneration Engine.
The Data Matchmaking Services Bundle that enables the exploration and search of the data assets from the eligible data consumers and the generation of recommendations for both additional data assets of interest or electricity data value chain stakeholders data providers who could potentially have/create the requested data asset. In terms of components, it composed of the Query Builder and the Matchmaking Engine.
The Data Analytics Services Bundle that provides the core functionalities for the design of data analytics pipelines (including the data manipulation, machine learning and deep learning and visualisation aspects) in the SYNERGY Core Big Data Management Platform and their execution in the Secure Experimentation Playgrounds and the On-Premise Environments. In terms of components, it composed of the Analytics Workbench, the Visualisation & Reporting Engine, the Data Manipulation Service, the Analytics Execution Service. and the Secure Results Export Service.
The Data Storage Services Bundle that is responsible for the different persistence modalities depending on the scope and the type of the data in the SYNERGY Cloud Infrastructure and the On-Premise Environments. This services bundle offers all storage and indexing tools used in the context of all the SYNERGY provided platform services.
The Data Governance Services Bundle that is responsible for the functionalities related to the proper coordination and end-to-end management of the data across all layers of the SYNERGY platform. In terms of components, it composed of the Master Controller, the Data Lineage service and the CIM Manager.
The Platform Management Services Bundle that undertakes the functionalities related to the resources management, security and the authentication, notifications management, platform analytics, and the Open APIs of the SYNERGY platform. In terms of components, it composed of the Resources Orchestrator, the Notifications Engine, the Security, Authentication & Authorisation Engine, the Platform Analytics Engine, and the API Gateway.

The following figures depict the involvement of each Services Bundle in the 3 main layers of the overall SYNERGY platform’s architecture.

Figure 2: SYNERGY Services Bundles in the SYNERGY Cloud Infrastructure

Figure 3: SYNERGY Services Bundles in the SYNERGY On-Premise Environments

The SYNERGY Energy Apps Portfolio is composed of a set of Energy applications that interact with the SYNERGY Core Cloud Platform. In total 13 Energy applications were designed and they are organised as follows:

(a) the Infrastructure Sizing and Grid Planning App, the Flexibility-based Network Management App, the RES Performance Monitoring/ Forecasting and Predictive Maintenance App, and the Network Asset Management Optimization App;

(b) the Retailer Portfolio Analytics and Management App, the Flexibility Analytics and Consumer-Centric DR Optimization App, the Personalized Energy Analytics App, and the DR Smart Contract Management App;

(c) the Advanced Renovation Support App, the Urban Energy Monitoring and Planning Support App, the Facility Management Monitoring and Analytics App, the Self-Consumption Optimization and Predictive Maintenance App, and the Building Energy Performance and Smart Readiness Certification App;

The following figure depicts the SYNERGY Energy Apps Portfolio.

What hinders the breakthrough of innovative smart energy services?

by Paul Tobin [GECO Global]

The European energy sector is in the process of a major shift from a traditional centralised structure to a more inclusive system that incorporates digitalisation, includes a wider variety of stakeholders, and requires new organisational processes. The H2020 SYNERGY project aims to implement an innovative big-data platform that promotes collaboration between currently diversified and fragmented electricity actors. This change will represent a more holistic approach that incorporates “end-to-end” coordination between the electricity sector stakeholders.

The successful adoption of these changes is reliant on identifying and addressing various barriers associated with integrating new technologies and services in the energy market. Assessing the barriers is a major component of the SYNERGY R&D project. What we intend to showcase here is a series of articles that dive into the socioeconomic, organisational, regulatory, and technological barriers to innovation. More specifically, how barriers in these domains hinder the implementation of services related to big data analytics.

To properly understand these barriers, the research journey in SYNERGY extended beyond current knowledge and hypothetical models to an investigation with various real market actors. To assess how these barriers truly impact the energy sector at the ground level, data and information were obtained from 11 organisations connected to the electricity sector, these organisations comprised of 6 different stakeholder groups (aggregator, facility managers/ESCOs, network operators, RES operators, retailers, and urban planners) in the electricity data value chain across pilot sites in five different countries. This process will ultimately decipher the impact of the relevant barriers to implementing the novel big data analytics platform, and the various related innovative services offered in SYNERGY.

The Barriers

Socioeconomic

Organisational

Regulatory

Organisational

The socio-economic barriers

by Paul Tobin [GECO Global]

Contributors: Christophe Dromacque [GECO], Christina Papadimitriou [UCY], Sotiris Tsakanikas [VERD], Luis Viguer [ETRA I+D], Fenareti Lampathaki [Suite 5]

The techno-centric approach to R&D projects in the energy sector has left the crucial factor of socioeconomics underappreciated. This is demonstrated by the existence of terms such as social acceptance. This term implies that the goal of an R&D project is to find a way for society to accept the technological changes that are to be implemented for the energy transition.

In truth, the transition to a decentralised renewable energy system requires the participation of an increased number of stakeholders, end-users and citizens, as well as consideration for local context and societal structure. Consequently, it is imperative to recognise the importance of the social and economic aspects such as the social policy and dynamics, the related costs and benefits of a new system to each individual stakeholder as well as their behaviours, motivations and attitudes towards the energy system and the impending transition.

(Click to enlarge)

Having a strong focus on the socioeconomic factors is key when identifying the potential barriers to innovation, and this is the methodology that was adopted in the SYNERGY project. To ensure no stone was left unturned, a granular approach to investigating the socioeconomic barriers was undertaken to identify specific barriers. Past research has often fallen into the trap of looking at the socioeconomic barriers through too broad a scope. For example, the barrier of public opposition to RES has been reduced to NIMBYism, when in fact there are several motivations beyond NIMBY which include issues such as health, landscape, scale of development and participation, to name but a few. Similarly, consumer motivations should not be restricted to a preference for lowering costs and maximising monetary benefits, although this is likely true, it only scratches the surface of true attitudes and motivations.

Exploring the socioeconomic barriers in SYNERGY comprised of conducting a literature review of existing research to identify all the relevant obstacles. This expedition into the socioeconomic landscape revealed a variety of potential barriers rooted in psychological factors, needs and abilities and issues related to the energy system.

Discovering all the relevant obstacles is informative at a high-level, however, bringing the knowledge to the ground level is crucial for the success of an R&D project. In SYNERGY, by presenting the barriers to real market actors involved in pilot sites implementing the SYNERGY solutions, we could clarify each individual barrier’s potential impact. More specifically, the research undertaken as part of SYNERGY revealed that the biggest concerns experienced by stakeholders related to:

1.No consumer awareness of benefits related to innovation, and the opportunities of cost-saving and revenue generation.

2.Neglecting the value of system flexibility in favour of a centralised system.

3.The exclusion of certain societal groups, such as the elderly and other vulnerable consumers or those with limited access to services.

The barriers that are considered the most impactful are important to identify but equally important is not to assume these barriers are relevant for various environments in which the innovation is implemented. A closer look at the most impactful barriers reveals that the effect of these barriers varies across the different pilot sites in SYNERGY.

The quantitative investigation informs us which are the most impactful barriers and how they affect different regions/pilot sites. To build on this, follow-up interviews were conducted to develop a deeper understanding of why certain barriers are considered as major obstacles to innovation. In addition to providing further insight, the interviews also provided an opportunity to investigate if these potential barriers could be addressed by the solutions being developed in the SYNERGY project. The value of the interview process is reflected in the insightful remarks on the highly impactful barriers such as…

CapEx

Data-driven innovation needs to account for the cost of accessing external assets which require further infrastructure to enable data sharing.

Neglecting value of system flexibility

Data quality, accuracy and multi-source compatibility are blocking the identification of the value of data. Inter-organisation data linking is not always exploited.

No holistic regulatory framework

Existing frameworks do not promote nor facilitate regulatory-driven innovation. Therefore, it is hard for regulated entities and aggregators to develop the necessary skills and processes.

Perception of data security vulnerability

Users are not usually positive in sharing their data if their use is not clearly anonymised and/or remunerated.

Data-driven innovation needs to account for the cost of accessing external assets which require further infrastructure to enable data sharing.

Data quality, accuracy and multi-source compatibility are blocking the identification of the value of data. Inter-organisation data linking is not always exploited.

Existing frameworks do not promote nor facilitate regulatory-driven innovation. Therefore, it is hard for regulated entities and aggregators to develop the necessary skills and processes.

Users are not usually positive in sharing their data if their use is not clearly anonymised and/or remunerated.

There is a necessity for developing new technologies and considering the business market when integrating new innovations. However, the integration of innovation should be considered a socioeconomic process, not just a technological one. The research conducted as part of SYNERGY has shown that assessing these barriers and taking a close look into the reasons behind them is essential to understand their impact and how they fit with the solutions being developed in an R&D project.

For more information on the analysis of the socioeconomic barriers in SYNERGY, you can read our executive summary from the deliverable D2.1 HERE.

What hinders the breakthrough of innovative smart energy services?