ECOFLEX

Energy prices are at historically high levels because the marginal power needed for balancing the grid depends mainly on gas-fired power plants. Thanks to increasing volumes of renewable power generation society will be less depending on electricity generated from natural gas. However, the natural mismatch between supply and demand of renewable energy needs to be balanced as well without gas-fired power plants. The ECOFLEX-project, where eight Belgian partners collaborate, aims to unlock the potential of electric cars and energy communities to balance the grid in a climate neutral way. This industrial R&D project has started on the first of November 2022 and will run for three years.

Next to the development of innovative energy management algorithms, embedded in a user-friendly platform, ECOFLEX will investigate different market mechanisms. Indeed, energy markets are complex and we should ensure that the resulting economic and ecological value flows back to society to safeguard future generations.

ECOFLEX will investigate how smart energy management of E-mobility charging infrastructure and of energy communities with controllable devices such as heat pumps and battery storage can contribute to balancing of the grid and to security of supply without compromising the natural function of these devices. The aggregated smart control will unlock idle flexibility in the grid allowing for cost-efficient and decentralised robust operation of the electric grid. Various challenges to bring this to reality still exist such as the behavioural uncertainty and variety of users controlling these devices and the convincing of sufficient participants to engage their devices in such flexibility services of the energy market.

The vision of the ECOFLEX project is the roll out of a real-life environment where actual newly developed innovative Energy Management algorithms are brought to a service layer where customers can test them and new interactions between stakeholders are investigated. More specifically this project will demonstrate the working of Energy Management and Flexibility Services in real-life living lab, Energy Communities (focus on SME zones) and E-mobility (large scale fleets).

Thanks to the support of the ETF funding (FOD Economy) Belgium will be at the center of these developments at least for the next 3 years.