On April 17th the report ‘Residential Flexibility, market vision on protocols and architecture for smart energy management’ was published. In the report, experts mapped out how the market views protocols and architecture for flexible power demand in and around the home. Within the home, devices must be able to work together for optimal energy management: interoperability. Interoperability is also necessary to prevent lock-ins and save costs for consumers. At the moment, this interoperability does not appear to be well organized, the researchers conclude. However, the importance of interoperability for more residential flexibility is recognized by all parties, and the parties share their vision on the most promising protocols for the future.
In and around a home, devices must be able to work together for optimal unlocking of flexibility. Ideally, all combinations of different brands, types and devices must be able to communicate well with each other. Think of managing the power demand of charging stations and heat pumps and coordinating that demand with the power generation by solar panels. Residential flexibility is one of the building blocks to reduce congestion in low-voltage power grids. With the help of energy management, consumers can also better respond to dynamic energy prices and the abolition of the salderingsregeling.
The report ‘Residential Flexibility’ was drawn up by Powerfolio (experts Jan Pellis and Bart Smakman) on behalf of ElaadNL and Flexiblepower Alliance Network (FAN). ElaadNL and FAN wanted insight into the current state of affairs and what the market thinks about protocols and architecture for smart energy management in and around the home. The report is based on 16 interviews with companies and industry associations, supplemented with the knowledge of an expert group.
The report concludes that there is still a lot of work to be done before energy flexibility in and around the home can be used optimally. The following conclusions are drawn, among others:
The current practice in the use of residential flexibility is not interoperable, but the importance of interoperability is widely endorsed.
The communication protocol ‘MODBUS RTU’ has the most traction within homes but does not offer interoperability. Towards the home, communication mainly takes place via so-called APIs from cloud platforms. The importance of interoperability for more residential flexibility is endorsed by almost all parties. In order to achieve more interoperability, one could consider prescribing (detailed) standards or only the functional requirements. Opinions on this are divided. More than half indicate that there is a need for a strong standard in the market. The majority of parties prefer the development of an open system with access for third parties.
Interoperability is necessary to prevent lock-ins and save costs for consumers.
Within the home, devices must be able to work together for optimal unlocking of flexibility. This promotes the freedom of choice of consumers in selecting suppliers and reduces the purchase costs. In addition, it is important that the so-called aggregators (flexibility traders) can communicate with the consumer’s devices in a standardized way to the home. The choice of specific protocols ensures clarity for both suppliers and service providers.
Scaling up residential flexibility can be accelerated, but choices need to be made.
Decisions must be made about the protocols to be used in the Netherlands, and also about the market model and agreement system with regard to the incentives that stimulate the use of residential flexibility. There are sufficient flexibility protocols known and ready for broad application. Several options for the next steps have been inventoried and included in a phased growth path for scaling up residential flexibility.
With the growth in the number of (hybrid) heat pumps, home batteries and home charging stations for electric cars, the number of devices with a broader flex functionality will increase. It is therefore necessary to provide new devices with standardized flex protocols in order to realize the full potential of residential flexibility. ElaadNL and FAN promote the use of open standards for energy flexibility and continue to work on making energy management in homes simpler and safer.
ElaadNL has started a follow-up project to accelerate the implementation of the most promising protocols together with manufacturers of HEMS and the big four energy devices in the home (charging stations, solar panels, heat pumps and home batteries).