The growing expansion of decentralised renewable energies is increasingly leading to capacity bottlenecks and voltage maintenance problems in Swiss distribution grids. Instead of expensive grid expansions, many of these problems can be solved by intelligent control of the decentralized assets in the grids. In addition, such flexibility management allows the cost efficiency of the energy supply in general to be increased through measures such as a reduction in balancing energy costs.
Although the systems are available, the concept has not yet been implemented in the Swiss energy system. The reason for this is the lack of cost-efficient control options for the decentralized systems and marketplaces for flexibility.
The OptiFlex pilot project has developed solutions for these missing pieces of the puzzle in three areas:
1. Building a cost-efficient, robust system for the intelligent control of decentralized plants
2. Conducting field trials as reference projects for flexibility management
3. Development of tariff models and draft contracts for local flexibility markets
The project objectives were successfully implemented and lay the foundations for a broad roll-out of flexibility management in the Swiss distribution networks.