ICT tools for enabling smart grid players' flexibility through VPP and DR services

The European Climate Change Program consists of a range of measures to fight against climate change, one of which is to reach 20% of renewable energy in the total energy supply in the EU by 2020. The increasing penetration of RES and DG introduces new business cases which require innovative ICT tools and the support of appropriate communication infrastructure. This paper focuses on the Virtual Power Plant and Demand Response cases, proposing a general architecture, as well as analyzing core functionalities, information and communication requirements, along with relative standards and technologies. The architectural analysis is based on the SGAM framework, a standardized architecture for smart grid solutions and services that enables new actors in the smart grid domain to participate in the energy markets and contribute to an optimal grid operation. The document presents the use cases' modeling and gives an overview of the pilots in which the proposed models will be materialized and validated.