MUSE GRIDS

Two large-scale pilot projects will be implemented in urban (Osimo) and rural (Oud-Heverlee) contexts with weak connections with national grids

Business Time Project Coordinator Funding Scheme
Energy Start date: 1/11/2018
End date: 31/10/2021
RINA Consulting S.p.A. H2020 – Horizon 2020
Call H2020-LC-SC3-2018-ES-SCC

 

Challenge

MUSE GRIDS aims to demonstrate, in two weakly connected areas (a town on a top of a hill in Italy, Osimo and a rural neighbourhood in Belgium, Oud HEverlee), a set of both technological and non-technological solutions targeting the interaction of local energy grids (electricity grids, district heating and cooling networks, water networks, gas grids, electrical mobility etc.) to enable maximization of local energy independency through optimized management of the production via end user driven control strategies, smart grid functionality, storage, CHP and RES integration.

These pilot projects will test and promote the main project concepts: Smart energy system and Local Energy Community.

MUSE GRIDS has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 824441 in order to reduce energy carbon footprint while meeting energy demands and creating real and sustainable energy islands through the interaction of energy grids in a new concept of Smart Energy System.

A Smart Energy System is an approach in which the different energy vectors (electricity, heating&cooling, water, gas, etc.) are combined with storage technologies and properly coordinated to utilize synergies between them and exploit the interaction with the users towards the reduction of energy losses and maximization of local RES Production valorisation. The aim is to achieve an affordable energy system for everyone with an optimal solution for each individual energy vector as well as for the overall energy system.

Approach

RINA is the project coordinator of MUSE GRIDS and will perform the overall project management in order to establish and maintain a communication among partners and control the progress of the project, ensuring the quality of the demonstration and of the deliveries.

Moreover, we are in charge of the replication and exploitation of MUSE GRIDS Technologies to leverage the monitored results of demonstration activities towards guidelines redaction for future replication not only in Europe but also in countries like India and Israel.

We will therefore provide guidelines for replication and provide virtual simulation and replication studies performed via MUSE GRIDS planning tool, one of the main result of the project to be realized capitalizing previous H2020 activities such as PLANHEAT.

This study will be also useful to identify a roadmap towards EU spreading of MUSE GRIDS concepts and results that would be exploited according to a commonly agreed exploitation strategy, as well as to promote replication via dedicated policies. It is relevant to highlight that in this project we are involved with three different offices: Italy (via RINA Consulting as project coordinator and replication responsible), UK (for grid management and maintenance aspects), Belgium (for policy promotion).

Conclusion

In conclusion, MUSE GRIDS will validate solutions for decarbonisation of local energy communities focusing not only in the technological solutions (storage systems, smart control, prediction models, energy exchange among different energy vectors), but also in the consumers and the whole socio-technological energy system involved. In particular, the project will have the following main positive impacts for the EU community:

  • expand use of renewable energy sources
  • development of Demand and generation prediction models
  • development of long-term planning tools for energy assets investment.

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Project Consortium

1 RINA Consulting S.p.A.2 Fundacion Cartif3 Università Politecnica delle Marche 4 Astea S.p.A. 5 Th!nk E 6 Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Innovation & Technology S.L. 7 Technische Universiteit Eindhoven 8 Energetica S. Coop 9 Belgisch Laboratorium Van De Elektriciteitsindustrie 10 GALU Limited 11 Duferco Energia S.p.A.12 European Association for storage of energy 13 Glen Dimplex Heating & Ventilation Ireland Unlimited company 14 Eptisa Servicios de Ingenieria S.L. 15 Municipality of Eilat 16 ABB of Asea Brown Boveri 17 Scame Parre SpA.

Alessandra Cuneo