Italy

BERCHIDDA MUNICIPALITY

 GRID is a Consortium formed by Nesosnet (SMART meter provider), R2M Energy (ESCO) and Prosume (Block chain technical provider) that are working in Italy as facilitators of EC creation. Currently there is a Smart Grid and energy community within Berchidda, as the municipality ow a public DSO. Covering the urban grid also have agro/rural grid. On the intervention, the pilot will upgrade the group of clients of this public DSO into an energy community. GRID has already some contracts for feasibility studies and technical projects for EC creation, signed with different types of communities and associations in Italy (rural communities, industrial districts, municipalities and more).

Actors

GRIDABILITY (https://gridability.eu/) has been formed in 2019 to enable the technological integration, commercial packaging, and project development of turnkey smart grid solutions made possible by a new generation of fiscal certified, multi-utility, multiple communication channel smart meters coupled to blockchain-enabled peer-to-peer energy optimization and trading platform and ESCO developed NZEB interventions and retrofits for both public, private, tertiary and industrial scale projects.

Site

BERCHIDDA MUNICIPALITY (https://www.comune.berchidda.ot.it/it), also Belchìdda in Sardinian, Bilchìdda in Gallura, is an Italian town of 2668 inhabitants in the province of Sassari. The country, for location, language and culture is part of the historical sub-region of Monte Acuto, although the municipal territory includes, for large stretches, land of Gallura (the mountainous area of Limbara to the north and north-east of the town

Relevance on Energy Communities’ framework

6 PV (27kWp) systems in demo households, and up to 30 PV systems across the municipality being installed. Solar thermal system is considered by municipality to reduce DHW expenses. A wind farm of about 50MW already planned and will be soon installed in the municipality and possible interconnection with the municipal smart- grid will be investigated..

Internally managed by the DSO municipal grid. There are different tariffs with variable pricing for electrical energy provision depending on the time of use and wholesale market indexes.

 

The typical aim of the energy community is the cooperation to:

– reduce the dependence on the utility grid

– minimize the energy bill enhancement of the self-consumption

– trade the overproduction of the energy with others

There are the electricity meters for each household deployed by the energy supply company.

The main characteristics of the Berchidda residential power grid are presented as follow:

  • 17 MV/LV substations, which are equipped with transformers of varying power between 100 kVA and 500 kVA, for a total power installed of about 5000 kVA
  • 4 km of MV underground cables, 3.2 km for the meshed network and 0.8 km for the radial network
  • 15.4 km of LV aerial cables
  • 21.6 km of LV underground cables

Energy Efficiency and Demand Response services are already being deployed to control mainly heat pumps; other services under development

 

EV charging points (public and residential) will be deployed soon, offered through the prepaid energy service and introducing recharging payment tools.

Installation of energy storage units (approx. 80kWh) planned, both community owned and private ones.

Individual AC split systems installed and utilized for heating/cooling purposes in the residential households across the municipality. Biomass-fed heating systems are also used.

Current situation MASTERPIECE achievements
- Urban area + Rural area with 3000 inhabitants

- Consumers Served by public DSO Municipality

- 6 PV installations

- 70 householders already engaged in running projects (HESTIA, LOCALRES, NEON), 100-150 by end of 2022 and 500 by 2023

- 70 Fiscal meters installed

- 20x residential storage + inverter with a capacity of 4 kWh, 1x 50kWh of storage inverter obtained with a parallel of the 4 kWh batteries. --> Total energy storage provided will be 130 kWh

- Approved plan for 50MW wind farm

Energy Community served and extended thanks to:

- Social innovations

- Digital interfaces for prosumers and DSO

- more Demand Response and flexibility services

- Test Potential P2P systems

- More fiscal meters installed to enable a larger P2P marketplace

- More investment on Renewable Energy

- Installation of Smart meters

- 500 EC participants