Context

Adapted and lightly edited from: https://cordis.europa.eu/result/rcn/191714_en.html

Distributed System Operators (DSOs) aligned with the European Commission have a strong interest in promoting the connection of renewable producers, evolving to a new business model based on services linked to the effective usage of grids, stimulating innovation and encouraging small companies and individuals to consider a non-conventional supply. The EU needs to take a step forward to provide a credible long-term vision of the future for small and medium renewable energy sources integrated into distributed grids. This commitment is essential to reach the current targets and trigger further investments, innovation initiatives, and jobs creation. The challenge for renewable energy policy is to find the right balance between installing large scale renewable energy capacity today and its effective integration in medium and low voltage grids.

Summary

Adapted and lightly edited from: https://cordis.europa.eu/result/rcn/191714_en.html

The IGREENGrid Project, led by Iberdrola (Spain), has the objective of identifying the most promising solutions for increasing the hosting capacity for Distributed Renewable Energy Sources (DRES) in power distribution grids without compromising reliability or jeopardizing the quality of supply. It analyses six Demonstration Projects (Spain, Austria, Greece, France, Italy and Germany) on the integration of DRES in low and medium voltage grids. The main project results consist of a set of guidelines to facilitate DRES integration. Other relevant results are presented as follows:

• Identification of barriers for DRES Integration.
• KPIs to assess present and future projects about DRES integration.
• A selection of the most promising solutions for facing the identified challenges and barriers.
• Criteria to establish hosting capacity and to manage curtailment procedures.
• DRES Guidelines for technical requirements, equipment manufacturers & technology providers.
• Assessment of the scalability and replicability of most promising solutions at EU level (from technical, regulatory and economic point of view).
• Methodologies to carry out technical and economic assessments.
• Relevant results in terms of potential hosting capacity increase.
• Strategy to better integrate DRES.
• Recommendations to stakeholders.