A local energy management system for solar integration and improved security of supply: The Nice Grid project

This paper describes Nice Grid, a demonstration project part of the European initiative Grid4EU. The project aims at developing a smart solar neighbourhood in the urban area of the city of Nice, France. The four year project started in November 2011 and will test the suitability of recent developments in distribution networks management for facilitating the connection of distributed renewable generators, improving the security of supply and let customers and other actors to provide network services. The idea behind Nice Grid is to combine controllable distributed electricity and thermal storage devices with forecasts of solar power production and load in a local energy management system. The paper, which represents a useful reference for the project, presents also a detailed overview of relevant European demonstration projects on Smart Grid.