Providing a customer microgrid as a service – A review of a pilot installation

Abstract

This paper describes some of the insights gained from a customer microgrid demonstration project located in the municipality of Askersund in Sweden. With this project it is intended to understand and create a better overall economy for investments in renewable micro-generation of electricity, and EV-charging through the use of battery storage and intelligent control systems. From a business model point of view, we find that for this type of customer (large commercial or institutional buildings), an energy storage brings the highest value as a peak shaving unit (peak shaving becoming more valuable in the coming years with the growth of electric vehicle numbers in Sweden). However, one has to note that each market has its specificity and that generic control algorithms proposed as of today will not provide optimal results, especially for customers tending to be of in-between size (higher consumption than a single home, but smaller than of an industry). From an installation point of view, it is worth observing that each customer installation is unique and that a standardized solution that fits everyone needs is probably not achievable. Instead, one should focus on developing a method to handle the specificity of each customer, by for example developing modular solutions or working with a broad range of products and suppliers that are compatible with one another. Finally, regulatory and safety aspects, mostly related to the battery, are hard to grasp since they are not yet well defined in Sweden.