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RegEnergy

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    Duration

    47 Months

    Walton Team members

    Overview

    RegEnergy is a Northwest Europe Interreg project which began in Dec 2018 and runs for 47 months. It has 9 partners spread across NW Europe and is focused on developing and implementing renewable energy regions. Each partner is focused on different aspects and locations. WIT will be concentrating on the Dingle peninsula as this has been designated as a smart grid zone in Ireland. Udaras na Gaeltachta are sub partners of WIT for the project as they have real estate and clients in this area as well as other rural areas around Ireland.

    The energy industry is going through a paradigm shift from a unidirectional, demand driven model with large centralised power generation to a market driven by smart grid ideals where supply and demand will be balanced with variable and intermittent renewable energies in a more localised manner. This will require intelligent systems to enable the scenarios, particularly at end user level, to satisfy demand within the peaks and troughs of the market. These networks will be based on distributed, local generation which can be shared in a peer to peer environment and supply and demand can be better managed reducing inefficiencies. These energy networks or clusters will act like microgrids and can trade with each other and eventually roll up to a regional and then national level to form the smart grid. This improves regions security of supply, reduces their carbon footprint and gives them the opportunity to control their energy use and become ‘prosumers’. The development of innovative technologies, products, processes and services will aid in the significant and demonstrable progress towards the goal of sustainable development.

    Implementation

    South East Technological University (SETU) will develop an Optimisation platform and will coordinate the implementation of smart grid technologies with the potential of being the hub of energy clusters. Sites will be procured that offer the facets required to implement smart grid technologies such that they can be rolled out to urban and rural settings. We will analyse groups of energy users – industrial, commercial and residential – such that optimisation techniques can be employed where supply and demand profiles can be balanced in a local, distributed manner. This will facilitate industrial/innovation parks, that can serve as a hub for this low carbon cluster. Modelling these profiles and having an aggregated view of the networks load requirements will facilitate optimisation with local distributed generation resources such as solar, wind and battery storage. It will also facilitate peak shaving, time of use tariffs and ancillary services with the wider grid. These clusters can ultimately then trade with the surrounding rural region, urban areas and other clusters. Transnational activity and knowledge sharing feeds with the other partners will also form an integral part of the project.

    This will be based at various locations around NW Europe with SETU focusing its implementation in the Dingle area.

    Key Objectives

    • Model the energy usage of a cluster of industrial clients
    • Model the potential to implement renewable energy technologies in the cluster
    • Model the potential to implement battery storage technologies in the cluster
    • Optimise cluster load with the market and available on-site technologies
    • Assess regulatory frameworks in relation to peer-to-peer energy trading