''Adapted and lightly edited from: https://interflex-h2020.com/interflex/context-objectives/

Context

The European electric power systems have undergone dramatic changes within the last two decades. Distributed renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power have reached significant shares while new uses of electricity have emerged, and there is still much to come with the ongoing e-mobility development. Today, the vast majority of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) are connected to the distribution grid. On that same grid, millions of electric vehicle charging stations all over Europe are likely to be deployed within the upcoming years. The distribution grid will need to adapt to rapidly changing energy flows. In the aim of minimizing the corresponding grid investments, distributed system operators will play a major role, with a more local approach, exploring the various means of managing the exchanged energy within the grid.

Summary & Objectives

InterFlex explores pathways to adapt and modernize the electric distribution system in line with the objectives of the 2020 and 2030 climate-energy packages of the European Commission. Six demonstration projects are being conducted in five EU Member States (Czech Republic, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden) in order to provide deep insights into the market and development potential of the issues that were given by the call for proposals, i.e., demand-response, smart grid, storage and energy system integration. With Enedis as the global coordinator and ČEZ Distribuce as the technical director, InterFlex relies on a set of 6 innovation streams, each addressed as a component of at least one of the demonstrations associated with this project (see Methods section):

• Islanding
• Demand Response
• Energy Storage
• Cross Energy Carries Synergies
• Electric Vehicles
• Grid Automation

Through the different demonstration projects, InterFlex will assess how the integration of the new solutions can lead to a local energy optimization. The success of these demonstrations requires that some of the new solutions are further developed in order to be deployed in real-life conditions. This will allow new business models and contractual relationships to be evaluated between the DSOs and the market players. The overarching objective of InterFlex are thus as follows:

1. Demonstrate a set of technologies and solutions in a real-scale environment in the context of an increasing share of renewable energy sources (e.g. 50% by 2030)
2. Use of high level maturity technologies
3. Demonstration and validation of new business models integrating
   • Distributed energy resources (wind, solar)
   • Flexibilities on a local scale (storage; optimized utilization of different energy carriers such as electricity, gas or heat, smart EV charging)