Ecogrid EU - a large scale smart grids demonstration of real time market-based integration of numerous small DER and DR

This paper provides an overview of the Ecogrid EU project, which is a large-scale demonstration project on the Danish island Bornholm. It provides Europe a fast track evolution towards smart grid dissemination and deployment in the distribution network. Objective of Ecogrid EU is to illustrate that modern information and communication technology (ICT) and innovative market solutions can enable the operation of a distribution power system with more than 50% renewable energy sources (RES). This will be a major contribution to the European 20-20-20 goals. Furthermore, the proposed Ecogrid EU market will offer the transmission system operator (TSO) additional balancing resources and ancillary services by facilitating the participation of small-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) and small end-consumers into the existing electricity markets. The majority of the 2000 participating residential customers will be equipped with demand response devices with smart controllers and smart meters, allowing them to respond to real-time prices based on their pre-programmed demand-response preferences.