The Community Aggregation Tool from Salzburg Research provides energy communities with a real-time, comprehensive overview of their collective energy balance.
An energy community is a legally and structurally defined association of citizens, municipalities, companies, or other organizations with the aim of generating, consuming, storing, and selling renewable energy. Surplus energy can be shared with other community members. Such direct trade within the community reduces costs.
To better coordinate energy production and consumption, it is helpful to understand the current energy balance. This enables loads to be shifted so that electricity is consumed when a large amount of self-generated electricity is available within the energy community. Devices such as heat pumps, storage units, and electric cars can be controlled based on load and yield. For instance, if an abundance of solar power is available at 4 p.m., the battery storage system can be charged accordingly, or flexible consumers, such as electric cars, can be activated.
Technical framework conditions in energy communities
Participants in an energy community require a smart meter that allows for 15-minute interval measurements. Without this data, billing within the community is impossible. These measurements are typically made available the following day via the EDA platform, which facilitates the centralized exchange of energy data in Austria. For an energy community, this means the data is received at 15-minute intervals with a delay of one or two days. This delay is too long for targeted optimization of generation and consumption.
Real-time insight into the energy balance
Every Smart Meter in Austria (and many in Europe) has a so-called customer interface. This physical interface allows end users to read detailed consumption data, typically with a resolution of a few seconds. The Community Aggregation Tool from Salzburg Research collects this high-frequency data from participating households and aggregates it to display the entire community’s energy balance in real time.
Example: Data from a small energy community consisting of three households, two photovoltaic (PV) systems, one battery storage unit, and one electric vehicle on a sunny day at the end of April.
Advantages of real-time data from the Community Aggregation Tool
Real-time data enables two interesting optimization applications:
- In the event of surplus production, additional consumers can be activated. For example, electric vehicles can be charged (“real-time load shifting”). This optimization has a lot of potential, especially in the morning.
- If consumption exceeds generation, battery storage can be controlled to more efficiently cover the load curve (“battery-assisted load matching”). In this case, this optimization could be implemented until 7:30 a.m., from 6:15 p.m. onwards, and during individual peaks throughout the day.
Requirements for the Community Aggregation Tool
To use the Community Aggregation Tool from Salzburg Research, you will need:
- A Smart Meter (which you most likely already have)
- A small additional device that connects to the customers interface of the Smart Meter and transmits the data to the Community Aggregation Tool
The Community Aggregation Tool then provides an online dashboard, as shown in the example, where you can view the aggregated data at any time, updated every minute.
If you are interested in using the Community Aggregation Tool, please feel free to contact us at any time for a non-binding, personalized consultation.
