About the project
EMPEDOFLEX aims to accelerate the deployment of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) and energy communities by developing an interoperable digital toolbox supporting planning, operation and management of multi-energy district with high renewable penetration, enhancing their potential coordinated flexibility provision. The project will deliver advanced data analytics, long-term planning and short-term management tools, validated at TRL 5 in diverse European contexts, supporting stakeholders such as DSOs, municipalities and energy communities in improving energy performance, flexibility and resilience. Like the philosopher Empedocles based his cosmogony on the four classical elements, EMPEDOFLEX lays its foundations on four objectives: (i) to deliver AI and ML solutions to extract useful information and knowledge from data; (ii) to provide tools that assess optimal long-term strategies for PEDs and other forms of aggregation of flexible resources; (iii) to deliver services for the short-term management to provide DR flexibility and (iv) to provide a toolbox that can be seamlessly integrated within existing ICT platforms.
EMPEDOFLEX supports the CET Partnership TRI1 – Integrated Net-zero-emissions Energy System and will contribute to the Green Powered Future Mission Innovation Priorities as all its outcomes will provide a value contribution to the Pillar 2 – System Flexibility and Market Design (2.5.2 and 2.5.4) and Pillar 3 – Data and Digitalisation for System Integration (3.3.2).
The goal of maximizing the use of RES in PEDs, while also enhancing the flexibility and robustness of local energy networks, results in a multi-dimensional challenge, which spans multiple domains (both energy and non-energy), time scales (from long-term planning to short-term management), types of constraints (technical, regulatory, and user-defined), and potentially conflicting criteria (environmental, economic, and social).
EMPEDOFLEX addresses these barriers through an interoperability-by-design approach, integrating heterogeneous tools via shared data models and ontology-based data exchange. The project advances beyond current solutions by delivering a toolbox combining advanced data analytics, long-term investment and planning optimization, and flexibility management.