Endesa Leads the European CoordiNet Project to Create a European Energy Platform and Open the Market to Consumers

A total of 23 companies and institutions from ten countries are participating in the European innovation project CoordiNet, led by Endesa, which seeks to achieve a more active participation of consumers in the electrical markets and take advantage of the flexibility that consumers and small generators can provide to the system, that currently is not used to improve the stability of the grid. The project, which was launched this Friday at the Endesa headquarters and will continue until 2022, will coordinate transporters, distributors and consumers of electricity to define their new roles in an environment in which the flows of electricity cease to be one-directional (from the large generation plant to the consumer), and become bi-directional.

The growing importance of renewables in the energy generation mix, the advance of distributed generation (small-scale sources and close to the place of consumption), the development of self-consumption, the storage of energy and the mass integration of the electric car present new challenges to the sector that require updating the roles of all agents involved. The electricity generation of the future will be renewable, more variable and decentralised, and less predictable than the traditional electricity generation, which requires greater flexibility to match supply and demand.

All of these changes will affect companies and consumers, and will require greater flexibility in the expansion and operation, both in generation and demand, to achieve the electricity system functioning safely and efficiently from the economic point of view.

The CoordiNet project, co-financed by the EU, is intended to show how the system operators (TSO) responsible for ensuring the balance of the national electrical systems and managing the transport grids (high voltage), and the distributors (DSO), managers of the medium- and low-voltage grids can act in coordination to purchase and activate grid services, promote the cooperation of all actors and eliminate the barriers of active participation for customers in the market.

To do so, CoordiNet will commission three large-scale demonstrations in Spain, Greece and Sweden, in several locations: Cádiz, Málaga, Murcia and Albacete in Spain, Cephalonia and Mesogaia in Greece and Uppsala, Malmö, and Gotland in Sweden.

TSOs, DSOs and consumers will participate in these demonstrations, in cooperation with the market agents. The Consortium of participating companies will define and promote standardised products to provide services of flexibility to the electricity system (balance of the system and management of congestion), in addition to the platforms necessary to develop this new European Market.

 “By taking away the distances, and as what happened with platforms in the housing and transport sector, the incorporation into the market of underused resources may generate value for their owners, and for the system as a whole. The solutions that will be tested at CoordiNet allow taking the first steps toward implementing significant changes at the European level and developing key technology for the future”, stated Pilar Nieto, responsible for Network Technologies en Endesa.

In Spain, Endesa Distribution, Iberdrola Distribution and Red Eléctrica de España will participate. Moreover, renowned research centres form part of the consortium, such as the Institute for Research in Technology at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas and Tecnalia Research & Innovation. In addition, the City Hall of Málaga and Our New Energy S.L, and companies like CIRCE and IREC, among others, will also collaborate in the project.

Participants in CoordiNet: Endesa, Iberdrola, REE, Tecnalia, Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, Our New Energy, Ayuntamiento de Málaga, Vattenfall Eldistribution AB, E.ON Energidistribution, Svenska Kraftnät, Ayuntamiento de Uppsala, Energiforsk, Expektra, RWTH Aachen, HEDNO, IPTO, ICCS/NTUA, VITO, N-SIDE, ENGNEERING, OFFIS, EDSO, ETRALUX