14 - Smart rural grid pilot in Spain

Abstract

The Smart Rural Grid (SRG) project emerges to face challenges of implementing Smart Grid and helps to answer the different technical and operational issues for the particular case of rural distribution networks, exploiting the convergence between electricity and telecommunications networks. The undertaken work aims to point out how utilities can operate more efficiently their available electric resources and manifests how to interconnect energy prosumers to enable a multidirectional energy flow. It also examines the best way to make the transition from the present rural distribution network to a new electric operational framework by using Smart Grid technologies without losing sight of the corresponding associated new business concepts and being respectful with the environment. This project is founded by the European Union and it is constituted by a consortium with eight partners. The partners have developed a set of devices, services, and energy managers that assist the operation of the cited SRG pilot. These cutting edge technologies pretend to increase the interoperability, resilience, efficiency, and robustness of the existing rural distribution network by the utilization of new Smart Grid technologies: (i) an Intelligent Distribution Power Router (IDPR), which is an active power electronic device operated at low voltage in rural distribution grids aiming to reduce losses and enable voltage and reactive power control; (ii) a new Power Line Communications technology for rural distribution network; (iii) a robust communication network that allows managing distributed energy resources and IDPRs; (iv) data and energy control systems that manage local microproduction and IDPR units; (v) energy storage systems that enable new operation modes and increases continuity of supply; (vi) a pilot area that integrates all the novel features.