Intelligent technology made in Portugal will allow energy savings

The device will interact, automatically and at a low cost, with the metering systems of the largest electricity, water and gas suppliers, reducing all associated tariffs and bringing benefits to the end-user. The cost of this technology should not exceed 100 euros.

Project AnyPLACE will develop a solution that will work as an energy manager in real-time

This project, called AnyPLACE (Adaptable Platform for Active Service Exchange), is led by INESC TEC and will be developed by a European energy consortium, as part of the H2020 programme.

“Currently we have different meters at home which are managed by energy providers, which offer different water, gas, and electricity tariffs. The solution to be developed is an energy manager that will be able to integrate the information from all these meters, and show it to the users so that they can choose a more economical profile,” explains João Peças Lopes, Director of INESC TEC and leader of the project.

Other than providing a more advantageous solution to the end-user in terms of cost/benefit, by remotely measuring various energy resources, the AnyPLACE platform will make it possible to actively manage and control electric grids, helping mitigate operational problems associated with the variability of renewable sources of energy.

“Let us imagine that at a certain time of the day there is a surplus of wind power which causes energy costs to decrease. The AnyPLACE platform receives information on that price in real time, and according to the usage profile, the platform acts on the home devices in order to benefit from that tariff,” the INESC TEC Director explains.

Another advantage is the fact that the platform is modular and adaptable to any home, regardless of existing technologies.

Consortium includes 8 organisations from four different nationalities

Besides INESC TEC, there are seven other partners, from four different nationalities (Portuguese, German, Dutch, and Austrian), involved in the project: Vienna University of Technology (Austria), Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Science (Germany), JRC – Joint Research Centre European Commission (The Netherlands), EFACEC Energia – Máquinas e Equipamentos Elétricos SA (Portugal), Power Plus Comunications AG (Germany), BOSCH Termotecnologia SA (Portugal) and Kreis Lippe der Landrat (Germany).

INESC TEC is represented in this project by the Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES) and the Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia (CTM), which will be responsible for implementing this project. The team involved is composed of João Peças Lopes, David Rua, Filipe Joel Soares, Luís Seca, Miguel Heleno, Manuel Matos, Paulo Portugal, António Pinto and Francisco Vasques.

AnyPLACE started in January 2015 and has a duration of 36 months. The first phase, which is now being implemented, consists of analysing energy behaviours in the four countries involved in the consortium. After this analysis, the modules of the AnyPLACE platform will be implemented and tested in a laboratory. When the project is concluded, the platform will be demonstrated in Germany with 15 to 20 users.

This project will be receiving an investment of 2.97 million euros, 2.44 of which will be funded by the European Commission.

The INESC TEC researcher mentioned in this article is associated with the following partner institution: FEUP, IPP and INESC Porto.

Photo credits:

• photo 2 – EFACEC
  
• photo 3 – ATMEL
  
• photos 6 and 7 – Konzern Kreis Lippe
  

INESC TEC, February 2015