Smart energy grids are coming online globally but the scope to analyse the volumes of data is only now being considered. A project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology is providing rich insights into how energy companies and their customers could benefit from combining data analytics from smart home and smart meter technologies.
In Saarlouis, a small German town bordering France, the German Federal government has funded the €4.8million PeerEnergyCloud (PEC) project to establish a more efficient and intelligent energy service for almost 40,000 residents. Over three years, AGT International has provided the advanced analytics capable of collecting and analysing the deluge of data from the Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and devices installed in every room in participating households. This has provided a pilot on analysing very detailed energy consumption behaviours to give power companies greater, real-time visibility of the demand on its service.
The changing face of energy consumption
Traditional energy supplies in Europe such as nuclear and fossil fuels are slowly being replaced by renewable, environmentally-friendly sources. Germany is the world’s leading producer of photovoltaic energy (38.2 GW cumulative installed capacity1), and this trend is expected to continue growing.
However, as communities transition from consumer to producer there is a considerable amount of energy flowing back into the grid. This new dynamic has meant that the amount of energy in the grid at any one time is completely unpredictable, and its infrastructure was never designed to handle that. Energy companies are faced with having to ‘throw away’ or sell excess energy, or explore the stock market for expensive solutions when there isn’t enough to meet the demand. They needed better ways of learning in real time how demand might be changing and what should be the best response. This is where the interest in harnessing IoT technologies arose.
The German Federal government recognised early on the need to develop smarter forecasting methods and chose AGT International to provide the analytics involved in an intuitive Smart Grid solution. AGT has a proven track record of innovating with IoT analytics technologies and runs a major research and development centre in IoT analytics in Darmstadt near Frankfurt.
Collecting the data
For three years, 50 houses in Saarlouis were fitted with smart devices on all of their power outlets to measure patterns of voltage and power consumption. This data was shared back into AGT’s wireless network every two seconds, providing considerably more information to the utility company than the one data-point typically collected each year when customers’ meters are physically read.
This high frequency of data input gave greater visibility into household behaviour and allowed AGT to conduct comprehensive predictive analysis. A system that only works with aggregated or average data will not allow this to happen as accurately.
The data collected and analysed by AGT technology was able to identify anomalies in energy consumption while the customer-facing dashboard allowed homeowners to recognise whether a device was faulty or using too much energy, ultimately saving both parties money. It also gave the homeowner the power to choose how much data they shared at any given time, protecting their privacy if they felt uncomfortable about sharing too much of their daily power consumption room by room.
Making changes and moving forward
Ensuring encryption protocols matched up to German privacy laws and maintaining an open dialogue with participants has fostered a community of satisfied and well-informed residents. The energy providers are also able to monitor and accurately distribute the right amount of energy into the grid, making thir business work more efficiently and economically.
The project has been so successful that since it ended in 2014 the AGT platform has remained within the community, capturing data and feeding into the analytics dashboard used by customers and the local power companies.
Gadi Lenz, Chief Scientist at AGT International commented: “This was a fantastic opportunity for AGT to provide the analytics required to make this project possible. Implementing a Smart Grid to support energy efficiency and cost reduction has benefited Saarlouis enormously and we look forward to repeating this project elsewhere and replicating the positive results.”