A €15.5 million RealValue project has revealed a potential way to transform energy consumption and lower operating costs across Ireland.

The Horizon 2020 project installed smart electric thermal storage systems (SETS) in around 550 properties in Ireland. The results show that the technology has the potential to transform how consumers use and store energy, in the form of heat, in their homes.

RealValue was driven by a consortium of 13 partner organisations from across Europe, led by Glen Dimplex, and including EirGrid, SSE Airtricity, ESB Networks, Intel and the Electricity Research Centre at UCD.

"Having the entire electricity value chain involved in RealValue was of the utmost importance and facilitated a 360-degree overview of the potential for smart electric thermal storage," commented RealValue Project Director, Rowena McCappin.

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Mark O'Malley, Full Professor of Electrical Engineering UCD and Chief Scientist, Energy Systems Integration, NREL, USA, explained: "The modelling completed for the RealValue project is indicative of the future potential for SETS, both at a building level and, when aggregated, at the power system level.

"Through smart scheduling of the devices, valuable services can be provided to the grid while maintaining the thermal comfort of the end-users. This can lead to lower system operating costs and lower variable renewable energy curtailment, particularly for scenarios where fuel prices and/or penetrations of variable renewable generation are high.

"Competing technologies and/or sources of flexibility have a large impact on the potential value of SETS. Compared to direct resistance heating, SETS demonstrate a significant capacity value – i.e. the reduction in system peak demands mean that lower conventional plant capacities are required to maintain system reliability."

SSE Airtricity has stated its commitment to the RealValue project and to delivering new renewables across Ireland. Strategy Programme Manager David Noronha said: "If we are going to transition to a smarter, greener system, the customer simply must be at the heart of everything we do, and that's what the RealValue project was all about. By empowering customers, increasing the penetration of renewables, and reducing costs, we believe these exciting technologies can bring significant benefits for all market participants, as well as our environment."

(CM)