About the project
The European power system is on the verge of an accelerating transformation through decentralisation, decarbonisation, and digitalisation. In that context, CoPRESS aims at empowering electricity consumers to become actors with the freedom to choose how their distributed energy resources (DER) interact with the grid. CoPRESS seeks the trade-off between customising solutions for individual circumstances and ensuring their scalability through the development of innovative energy microservices based on cooperation between local actors and the stacking of revenues. Another objective is to increase the hosting capacity of renewable energy sources (RES). The project also aims to validate solutions in real-life environments, assess the viability of the approach through interdisciplinary studies, and share technical knowledge and scientific outputs for global benefit.
By offering a digital cloud-based platform that implements a set of standardised microservices, CoPRESS will enhance the hosting capacity of distribution networks by unlocking flexibility from small, distributed resources. It will incentivise electricity consumers to become prosumers by maximising the profitability of local energy systems based on distributed renewables and energy storage. It supports the development of new energy services thanks to interoperability, modularity, and secure data flows. The CoPRESS platform is complemented by grid studies to evaluate the impact of neighbourhood-level system boundaries on the return on investment for DERs, the effect of dynamic grid tariffs on encouraging flexible consumption patterns and addressing grid infrastructure needs; and the environmental and technical impacts of the CoPRESS solution.
CoPRESS is built around the concept of “energy cells”, which promotes collaboration between network operators and new electricity stakeholders such as industrial prosumers and citizen energy communities. At the technology level, CoPRESS focuses on advanced power management systems (PMS) and provides a full set of standardised and interoperable microservices to enhance cooperation among diverse energy resources. This includes innovative control for resilient, multi-level, multi-revenue optimisation; forecasting of generation and loads; and innovative diagnostics and prognostic services for storage systems. At the market level, combining storage technologies enables the provision of multiple services, benefiting both energy cells and network operators. This is complemented by interdisciplinary studies. Feasibility and desirability studies have been conducted on regulatory frameworks, markets, business models, environmental impacts, and user acceptability. Grid studies quantify the impact of distributed energy storage and energy cells on RES hosting capacity, evaluate the impact of neighbourhood-level system boundaries on the return on investment for DERs, and estimate the effect of dynamic grid tariffs on consumption patterns.