+100
members daily monitored
Energy sharing administration
Use Case
Energy flexibility
Challenge
The main challenge of the energy sector is to have capillary monitoring of production, consumption, and distribution with timely and real-time data. This scenario also calls for the addition of a new figure, the Aggregator, and a new involvement of end users.
The new era of energy shifted to decentralized energy communities and flexibility is the key to which consumers are called upon to step in.
Approach
To solve this problem was adopted an interoperable and open solution which ensures the possibility of integration with different devices. In fact, the gateway called Energy Box, developed by Apio, allows communication through the Chain2 channel with different communication protocols (among the most common Z-Wave, EnOcean, WiFi, ModBus, etc.). The Energy Box, installed in the user's home, also has "onboard intelligence" and allows for "embedded" functions that can analyze data and make decisions autonomously, such as, for example, balancing consumption and comfort or recognizing, from consumption patterns, the presence and behavior of the user. It is able, therefore, to detect any alarm situations, providing the user with real-time feedback.
The Energy Box also makes it possible, through an interface in the Dashboard, to easily create new rules and solutions that point to the integration of energy management systems with automation and control systems, potentially providing additional services to end users. Thanks to the use of a user-friendly interface, all services are usable in real-time via App also mobile, to manage and monitor your home even remotely, wherever you are in the world.
Project's KPI
+15 MWh
daily energy shared
+5
communities involved
Sustainable goals achieved with the project
Smart home
Following the establishment of the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan, by which the European Commission set the EU strategy for the accelerated development of energy technologies, the active involvement of the user in the energy system has become a priority.
Smart Home means a smart home that, through new IoT technologies, adapts to the needs of the inhabitant, enabling real-time interaction. There are several home automation solutions on the market, closed and proprietary, which do not allow interaction with devices from other manufacturers. This results in the need to equip the home with multiple, separate systems, unable to communicate with each other (stand-alone), to cater to the different needs of the home environment.
The experimentation
ENEA has developed and tested a replicable Smart Home model capable of monitoring and
optimize energy consumption and the degree of comfort and safety of homes and offices in a
residential and tertiary district, and transmit them to an ICT platform, where they are
analyzed and aggregated so as to provide a range of feedback to the user and the community, reducing electricity and heat consumption; but also providing additional services to assist the people through humanoid robots for "assisted living" and security.
The central unit, or Energy Box, an open source computer platform in wi-fi connection made by Apio, collects data on the environmental situation, reprocesses it, and provides feedback to the user who can check his consumption by tracking his performance and comparing himself with other users to incentivize more efficient use of energy.