5 productive pilot sites
Five pilot sites have been successfully established or at least upgraded by the project.
Luče, Slovenia
The first energy community in Slovenia.
COMPILE pilot site Luče represents a case of a rural low voltage network with a weak and unstable connection to the medium voltage grid. Luče has also a relatively weak local power grid which often encounters power failures and limits the integration of renewable energy sources (RES), as the voltage during the day rises above the limits. Outages are most common during times of extreme weather events like storms and thunderstorms.
Crevillent, Spain
Crevillent is a city on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The grid is managed by Cooperative Crevillent, a part of Enercoop which manages 14,315 consumers (13047 households and 1268 companies) in low voltage network; and 30 consumers in medium voltage network (mainly industrial and service sector companies).
The entire energy production of the entity has zero emissions and is working hard to get all the generated and distributed energy 100% clean. Moreover, the profits of the Cooperative are given back to the society with the improving of the Distribution Network technology and projects to improve the quality of life of the citizens such as a nursing home and free mortuary. Given that, the goals for this project site were to increase the level of self-sufficiency of the area with new PV roofs, improve the grid flexibility, and enhance social cohesion. The community building aspect has not been developed before; therefore, the social cohesion and activation of users is the main innovation in this COMPILE pilot site as it is the first of a kind application.
Križevci, Croatia
The site consists of an urban technology development centre with office buildings which is a part of the town Križevci. The pilot site is focused on public buildings, mainly the technology park, where the first Croatian citizen crowdfunded PV plant was built in 2018 through ZEZ’s crowdfunding platform. The PV system of 30 kW intended for self-consumption was installed within the facility, which is hosting some 30 organizations ranging from IT start-ups to chemical companies. An additional 30 kW PV system was installed in a nearby library in 2019, also to be used primarily for self-consumption.
Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon pilot site is a residential quarter with 8 buildings forming a condominium with 150 apartments. It’s located in a residential area of Lisbon called “Alta de Lisboa”. The owners of the apartment have invested in the installation of photovoltaic (PV) panels which sums up to 9 kW of installed capacity to cover their energy needs for common areas of the buildings, including the lighting, elevators and HVAC systems. They also have two private EV charging points and all 150 apartments are connected to the grid. The households’ owners want to invest collectively in the installation of more PV panels in order to share the energy among themselves and become an energy community (EnC).
Rafina, Greece
The municipality of Rafina-Pikermi is a port town located near Athens. It spreads across an area of over 40.000 km2 and has a population of about 20.000. Apart from the port, Rafina consists mostly of households and local businesses and there are no industrial establishments at the moment. The local energy systems are predominantly supplied from the main grid, yet there are small private PV installations using net metering. Consumer demand-response activity is quite low as well as their interest in cooperative energy solutions. On the plus side, there is a new energy law enabling the creation of energy communities (EnC) and providing the legal framework to work with. There are several public buildings available for RES integration.
4 TECHNICAL TOOLS
2 SUPPORT TOOLS
GridRule
GridRule
GridRule equips the community managers, such as aggregators and micro grid operators, with the means to guarantee that the local power grid is kept within the network limits. As a result, it improves its flexibility, stability, and security. Individual EnC members are coordinated to enable optimisation on a community level. The main features of the GridRule are:
- Community self-consumption optimisation
- Community battery management
- Community island mode
- Ancillary services provision
- Interoperability with other COMPILE tools
HomeRule
HomeRule
HomeRule was designed and developed to manage single building/ home energy needs as individual building blocks of the EnC. With the help of advanced management techniques, it enables the possibility of controlling various new technologies, which increases the added value and the benefits for the end-user as it helps maximise the output of all energy vectors. When part of the EnC, the tool enables interoperability with other modules and members. Among the most important features of the tool are the, [2]:
- Advanced PV curtailment, which optimises the PV generation
- Voltage support function, which stabilizes the voltage profile and enables the connection and control of the PV, household battery installation, and EV charger
EVRule
EVRule
EVRule solution was designed as an electric vehicle charging station which enables load control and optimization of the charging costs. With the prediction of the EV user behaviour, combined with the household’s consumption and connection with GridRule, either directly or via HomeRule, the charging process presents new opportunities for cost reduction and an advanced management system. It includes fair redistribution of available charging power to all EV owners and in cases of network constraints offers priority charging options.
ComPilot
ComPilot
ComPilot is intended for EnC management. It is a digital platform that supports the creation and operation of EnCs and provides enhanced management capabilities to the connected users. It targets EnC managers and members since it is designed as a socio-technological solution. Additionally, the ComPilot manages demand response similarly to the GridRule, but on a higher level.
COOLkit
COOLkit
The COOLkit is a collection of reports and dashboards, that contain the know-how and helps new actors in building up their EnCs. This knowledge-sharing repository is targeted toward community leaders and members, which are in the EnC creation process. It provides insights on how to create an EnC, what are the benefits of creating one, and what are the best examples of EnCs. The toolkit serves as a support or additional knowledge source on the creation, expansion, and upscaling of the EnCs.
ValueTool
ValueTool
The Value Tool developed in COMPILE proposes house owners to make an economic evaluation of the benefits from the installation of rooftop PV for themselves or as part of an energy community. The analysis can be conducted in 5 different European countries: Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain. The analysis aims to be exhaustive as it integrates the adequate legislative frameworks (connection possibilities, electricity billing system, subvention scheme), technical boundaries (PV wear and tear, maximal power connection), and numerous parameters which the user can customise.
MATURITY SCALE FRAMEWORK
The maturity scale is a tool built with the goal to support the community leaders in developing energy communities.
It is a dashboard that helps energy community leaders and organisations by giving them a more complete picture of where their group initiative is in its development and how stable it is. This tool provides insights and deeper understanding of the development level, the core strengths and key weaknesses of a community group tackling with energy related issues in order to guide them on the way to a mature, stable and democratic organization.
Do you want to try it and build your community project? We prepared timeline, cards and brochure.
51 DELIVERABLES
During the project, we submitted 51 deliverables.
More than 120 events
Good practices, challenges and benefits were shared through trade fairs, workshops, trainings, conferences, assemblies, winter school, summer school, TV shows, discussions and other events on national, European and international level, webinars, etc.
Every single one of the partners did something to further the project, whether it was hosting an event or presenting the findings and lessons learned. In total, we were able to reach over 5,000 people.
Prizes and awards
We are honoured that different juries recognized our work.
“Energy efficient project 2020” award
November 2020: COMPILE won the “Energy Efficient Project 2020” award with the example of the first self-sufficient energy community in Slovenia.
Nominated for EUSEW Awards 2021
May 2021: COMPILE coordinator applied for the award within the EU Sustainable Energy Week 2021. The application was submitted in the category “Innovation” with an example taken from the technical solutions deployed in pilot site Luče.
RGI’S 2021 Prize “Good practice of the Year”
December 2021: COMPILE project received the »Good Practice of the Year« award in the Communication and Engagement category awarded by the German association Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI). The main achievements of the project that were highlighted by the jury:
- Results obtained by real implementation of the solutions and progress beyond pure research and theoretical models using active communication,
- 13 consortium partners achieved important innovations in all pilots,
- First of its kind approach whole-community approach in Slovenia.
Compile family
The project brought together more than 20 people, and our common goal of creating energy communities united us into a big COMPILE family. Find out who’s behind it and what are personal impressions of the project.
THE PROJECT IS OVER, BUT WE WILL STILL BE ACTIVE IN EXPRESSING OUR IDEAS AND SPREADING OUR EXPERIENCE ALL OVER THE WORLD!