The increasing penetration of renewable energy sources and the presence of new electrical loads, such as electric vehicles and building air conditioning systems, allow for a reduction in climate-changing emissions. However, they also introduce greater randomness into the power circulating in the grids. For this reason, it is essential to develop and experiment with the provision of flexibility services, by means of market mechanisms, which can ensure the stable and adequate operation of the power system, including the distribution network.

In this context, the purpose of the three-year activity pertaining to LA2.01, LA2.02 and LA2.03 of project 2.10 “Flexibility of the integrated energy system”, concerns the analysis, development, and field testing through a pilot project, carried out in collaboration with Unareti, of innovative technical solutions to ensure the efficient and flexible operation of the system, through the opening of local markets of ancillary services in which different flexible units can participate. The purpose of the pilot project is to test and validate control and management tools, based on market mechanisms, and integrating demand and generation forecasting systems and Dynamic Thermal Rating techniques.

The aim of the activity carried out in this year and described in the following report was to define the management and control structure, based on the local service market, to improve the operation of the distribution network in the presence of increased flexibility requirements resulting from the increasing electrification of loads and the massive deployment of non-programmable distributed generation units.

During the activity, the predictive systems of short-term electricity demand in disaggregated and aggregated form were then implemented. The latter predictive tool was used to evaluate, through experimental analysis and simulations, the impact of demand forecasts on the services offered by means of a prototype technical/economic platform simplified from the structure that will be implemented within the pilot project. The results made it possible to assess how the use of short-term forecasts allows for improved performance compared to the use of persistence of demand measures to the day before.

Despite this, it is clear that very short-term demand forecasting methods in disaggregated form will need to be developed and integrated to account for network reconfigurations.

Finally, the activity allowed to analyze, in collaboration with the University of Sannio, the potential use of distribution network management paradigms based on real-time monitoring of the thermal state of critical system components. To this end, the main models available in the literature for the analysis and simulation of the thermal behavior of electrical components were investigated, with particular reference to underground MV cables.