Commercial Flexibility pilot Germany
The Living Lab Energy Campus (LLEC) at Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ, “Jülich Research Centre”) constitutes a testbed where both innovative hardware and software solutions for district energy systems are tested under close to real conditions, in a scientifically monitored environment incorporating real users.
The basis for LLEC is formed by the already existing infrastructure of the FZJ, which is one of the largest interdisciplinary research centers in Europe. The research center forms a self-contained district with few infrastructural connections to the surrounding area.
The main part of the research center in Jülich covers an area of about 1.7 square kilometers with approximately 150 buildings, multiple large test facilities, and supercomputers.
The infrastructure consists of an electricity grid at various voltage levels, a meshed heating grid, various cooling grids, and a gas grid. Within LLEC, different energy demonstrators for both generating and storing energy are integrated into the existing infrastructure in such a way, that the resulting infrastructure forms an ideal testbed for future multi-modal district energy systems with a high share of intermittent renewables energies.
Those include several PV installations (including agricultural and façade solutions), a LTDH system that use the waste heat of the local supercomputer with associated heat pumps (seven buildings), electrolysers and LOHC storage, two large battery storage solutions (500 kW/2.6 MWh, 1.5 MW/500 kWh) and several V2G capable cars and charging stations (100kW each).
The commercial flexibility pilot will contribute to achieve the following objectives
- Develop and deploy harmonization software protocol to integrate different distributed storage applications ensuring interoperability (Interoperable DES)
- Integrate and explore synergies of HESS to enable its operation as a conventional BESS with enhanced performance
- Develop, deploy and validate an open adaptation of data sovereignty connected dataspace building blocks to enable DES data valorization and data-driven service digitalization