Advisory Board

The first RESERVE advisory board meeting took place on January 23^rd, 2018 in the offices of the Kooperationstelle EU der Wissenschaftsorganisationen (KoWi) in Brussels.

Objective of the meeting was to present and discuss the project work, enabling the RESERVE advisory board to:

• provide us with feedback on the focus and progress of our work to date and to
• propose potential changes which would enhance the project results and impact in the second half of the project

The members of the advisory board that took part in the meeting were:

• Goran Andersson - ETH Zürich, Switzerland
• Francesco Profumo - Compagnia di San Paolo, Italy
• Georgios Antonopoulos - JRC Directorate C: Energy, Transport and Climate Petten, the Netherlands (in substitution for the official board member Mr. Marcelo Masera),
• Chiara Vergine - Terna Rete Italia S.p.A., Italy

During the half-day meeting, every work package leader presented a summary of the results obtained so far as well as the plans for the future work in front of the board. Thanks to the active participation of the board members who interacted with the speakers by asking questions and making comments about the presentation, very vivid and constructive discussions were initiated.

The organisation of the meeting went very well, both logistically and with a view to the timing. We have received very positive feedback from all the advisory board members that congratulated us for the very good work and the excellent progress. Comments and questions regarding the individual presentations were annotated and will be taken into account for the future work and presentations. Moreover, the suggestions from the advisory board will be presented as part of the project results in the first periodic review of the project to be held in June 2018.

On occasion of the meeting, short interviews with the members were also recorded. The board representatives were asked to confirm their availability to have their answers to questions recorded, while they were given the opportunity to prepare these beforehand.

Questions comprised the following topics:

• the role of storage in the definition of new, dedicated network codes and
• the need to increase the responsibility of DSOs regarding the provision of ancillary services and/or the usage of new data transmission technologies to manage large volumes of data while meeting the requirements for data transfer speed and security.

Regarding the first question, all members agreed on the importance of the storage system in terms of integrating renewable energy sources in the network. Prof. Profumo pointed out that, although in the last few years many advancements have been made, a technology for the future has not been established yet and further research and investments are needed in this field. For Dr. Antonopoulos, energy storage seen as a capability for services to the grid may not need to be subject of separate grid code but definitely has to be included in other codes. Prof. Andersson, on the other hand, considers that storage may even be a topic for a distinct network code and, in order to speed up and optimize the process, he stressed the importance of looking at what has already been developed in the past: pump hydro storage, for example, is already in the network and one should learn from that and apply it to new kinds of storage like batteries or other devices.

Concerning the role of DSOs in providing new ancillary services and managing data transfers, the members approached the problem from different points of view. In order to pass from the existing power system network (generators-network-consumers) to a smarter management of the system, a closer collaboration between TSOs and DSOs has to be established, explained Dr. Antonopoulos. Additionally, the management of large data is very important and the work on the communication side must be underpinned by the research, taking into account, however, that at the end of the day, it is a matter of costs to decide which technology will be adopted. For Prof. Andersson, data transfer is not just limited to ancillary services. He is convinced that the first step to approach the data transfer problem should be to identify and classify all available data that are differently important for the grid under various aspects. For example, some data are important for the security of the network and they must have a high priority in the communication links; other data are important for the optimization of the grid, and so on.  Prof. Profumo highlighted that the relation between IT and energy is a very hot topic right now, and that the use of new telecommunication technologies like the upcoming 5G is a great opportunity for the DSOs. The quality of life for people will be improved by having more opportunity to get data from the new combination between IT and energy system for all energy systems, and it will be a great opportunity to grow, not only in Europe but in the entire world.

Meeting Agenda