Integrating smart storage and aggregators for network congestion management & voltage support in a pilot project in Eindhoven

Enexis is a distribution system operator (DSO) in the
Netherlands and one of the front runners for facilitating
the energy transition in the Dutch electricity grids. The
Interflex project is initiated in 2017 under the Horizon
2020 research and innovation programme of the European
Union. The Dutch demonstration project is conducted in
the city of Eindhoven, where a mixed urban
neighbourhood is chosen for integrating local battery
storage in the low voltage (LV) electricity network along
with several public charging facilities for electric vehicles
(EVs) and local electricity production from photovoltaic
(PV) panels. In this project, Enexis aims to solve
congestion problems in the network efficiently while
maintaining the voltage quality within the Dutch standard
boundary limits. To attain this goal, Enexis may purchase
the required flexibility from the local flexibility market
based on the price of flexibility. In addition to that, the
variable connection capacity mechanism is also
introduced that allows the DSO to manage the network’s
congestion efficiently. In this paper, the importance of
smart battery storage for testing the proposed concepts is
discussed. Furthermore, a short description is given about
the current status of the project.