Flexigy Smart-grid Architecture

The electricity field is facing major challenges in the implementation of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) at a large scale. End users are taking on the role of electricity producers and consumers simultaneously (prosumers), acting like Distributed Energy Resources (DER), injecting their excess electricity into the grid. This challenges the management of grid load balance, increases running costs, and is later reflected in the tariffs paid by consumers, thus threatening the widespread of RES. The Flexigy project explores a solution to this topic by proposing a smart-grid architecture for day-ahead flexibility scheduling of individual and Renewable Energy Community (REC) resources. Our solution is prepared to allow Transmission System Operators (TSO) to request Demand Response (DR) services in emergency situations. This paper overviews the grid balance problematic, introduces the main concepts of energy flexibility and DR, and focuses its content on explaining the Flexigy architecture.