Ghent University is both the academic research partner in this project and the project coordinator. Involved research groups include the Electrical Energy Lab, part of the Faculty of Engineering & Architecture, and Economics, part of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. The main academic research topics are the investigation of the optimal home energy management architecture, the analysis of compound (price) signals capturing information about both wholesale electricity prices as system and grid parameters such as imbalance and congestion, studying the impact of user behaviour on residential flexibility and modelling the contribution of residential flexibility to the Belgian electricity system. Furthermore, Ghent University will take the lead in both academic and public dissemination, and will advance research cooperation both in Belgium and abroad.
Ecopower cv is a cooperative supplier and producer of green energy with more than 70,000 cooperative members (citizens). To 60,000 of its cooperative members, Ecopower supplies green electricity from its own renewable energy production assets (e.g. wind turbines and PV installations). Ecopower was founded in 1991 and has three main goals: invest in renewable energy, supply 100% green electricity to its cooperative members and promoting rational use of energy, renewable energy and the cooperative business model in general. Within the InterFlex project, Ecopower will investigate how to practically apply compound price signals to residential customers and setup a real-life test pilot to measure its effectiveness with their customers.
Eneco Belgium is a Belgian energy supplier, part of the Eneco Group, serving over 950,000 residentials customers in Belgium with 100% green & Belgian power. Eneco aims to become climate-neutral in 2035, and fully commits to the innovation required to achieve this ambitious goal. In the project, Eneco will focus on unlocking residential flexiblity mainly through the smart use of Electric Vehicles (EV). They will organize large-scale pilots involving a significant number of real-world households and their EVs. The company has access to a large number of interested customers and will set up the necessary communication channels, software, and hardware to interact with the EVs and collect data. The collaboration with Ghent University that is enabled by this project is key to unlocking the full potential of EV flexibility and achieving mass adoption.
Re.alto is a software company developing energy IoT appliance connections for Energy Management Systems (EMS) and is working on a digital API marketplace for top down energy data access. In this project, re.alto will focus on the electrical flexibility potential of company EVs. They will evaluate different business models in the Belgian transportation landscape and determine how market design can provide the necessary incentives to facilitate the incorporation of company car fleets into the V2G potential identified in previous theoretical research. To further this goal, re.alto will conduct a pilot program involving several fleet managers and up to hundred EV drivers.