INESC TEC develops platform to improve energy flexibility in Europe

The digital platform that will allow consumers, aggregators, flexibility service providers and system operators to streamline their participation in local energy flexibility markets is now available – and it features INESC TEC. It is called Grid Data and Business Network (GDBN), currently being developed within the framework of the BeFlexible project.

Let’s go back to 2022: BeFlexible aimed at making energy systems more flexible and adaptable, helping to integrate a greater amount of renewable energy into power grids. INESC TEC took on the challenge of creating tools to help the grids adapt to changes that will inevitably occur in terms of energy production and distribution. But how can we engage consumers in the production and consumption of renewable energy, thus ensuring that energy is used more efficiently?

Two years later, the project presents tangible results; Fábio Coelho, INESC TEC researcher, talked a little bit more about GDBN: “this solution, created in collaboration with SAP and based on the company’s cloud technology, aims to improve the participation of consumers, aggregators, flexibility service providers and system operators in local flexibility markets, adapting the value chain for flexibility, as designed by INESC TEC within the scope of the project. We seek to promote the creation of new services focused on this area and reduce access costs for smaller stakeholders, like system operators and local service providers. In addition, the platform allows efficient interaction between markets in different regions, e.g., Iberian, contributing to greater agility in international operations.”

The GDBN will now be tested in two locations (Spain and France) to verify that the proposed solutions work in a real environment. The platform is being prepared to be adapted to different contexts and sectors, initially focused on the energy flexibility, making it possible to expand it to other energy sources, like gas.

Regarding the future and the different applications of the platform, Fábio Coelho clarified: “the GDBN platform will be used in another European project, Hedge.Iot, and we hope to keep evolving together with SAP.”

This platform will democratise and digitalise citizens and companies’ access to new business models and financing related to flexibility in electricity consumption, contributing to reduce participation costs in local and national flexibility markets.

The BeFlexible project features Power & Energy and High-Assurance Software teams from INESC TEC.