Introduction

•    PLATOON - Digital PLAtform and analytical TOOls for eNergy
•    Number of Partners: 20
•    Coordinator: ENGIE
•    Start Date 01/01/2020
•    Duration: 3 Years
•    Total Budget: €11.479.755
•    Funded by the European Union

PLATOON Consortium Partners

Project Context

During the last few years the electricity sector is experiencing its most dramatic transformation since its creation. Nowadays electricity covers almost 20% of global energy consumption and it is expected to rise exponentially during the next decades both in absolute and relative terms. This growth is mainly driven by three factors: 1) world population increase, 2) need for greener energy sources to fight global warming 3) the disruption of new technologies such as electric transportation and digital technologies. In order to address these challenges, the electricity sector is shifting towards decentralization and decarbonization - strategies that bring multiple benefits to the system, alongside many new challenges.

One such example is the rise of renewable energy sources, that demands algorithms to predict and help avoid the disturbances into the grid. Renewable resources highly depend on weather conditions and flexible operations are of paramount importance to counteract that volatility. Another example are power systems, which have been designed to meet infrequent peaks in demand and to comply with excessive safety margins, which in many cases has resulted in costly and underutilized infrastructure. Smarter consumption of electricity and condition monitoring of the assets, could deliver significant savings by improving the utilization of the existing infrastructure. For these reasons, it is necessary to build a cyber-secure digital platform that allows for large-scale multi-party data exchange, processing and monetisation, all governed by a clear data governance policy. Equally, it is necessary to develop an analytical toolbox for the development of energy specific applications that can contribute to the efficiency of the existing energy system by improving existing processes and unleashing new services and business models.

Project Description

The H2020 EU-funded PLATOON project, in which OWI-Lab is involved through VUB as consortium partner, provides new approaches and analytics tools for Energy Big Data, thus supporting the zero-carbon transition and developing new services in the energy domain. In an increasingly complex and heterogeneous environment, PLATOON enables the evolution from a classical centralised energy sector to a more distributed one, with intermittent renewable energy sources and new extended digital capabilities. While contributing to artificial intelligence, interoperability, data privacy and security, PLATOON adheres to the standards of the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA), aiming thus to realise the first IDS-compliant Data Marketplace for the Energy sector.

The project will be validated in 7 pilots in 5 countries (France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Serbia), addressing real Energy Big Data cases. PLATOON’s pilots cover the whole range of energy services along the energy supply chain, such as energy efficiency, electricity balance and predictive maintenance of wind farms, smart cities, buildings and office hubs, with the objective to increase operation performance with physical models and AI algorithms. Moreover, PLATOON’s pilots focus on electricity grid stability, connectivity and life extension, advanced energy management systems and energy management of microgrids. PLATOON will facilitate the technology transfer to the market by a well-established tendering process via open calls.