Catalonian Grid Operator Electra Caldense, Energy Web, and Bamboo Energy Announce Grid Flexibility Project
Strategic collaboration will leverage open-source EW-DOS tech stack and Bamboo flexibility platform to enable battery energy storage, electric vehicles, solar photovoltaic plants, and industrial companies to provide flexibility services to the distribution grid. Electra Caldense will also join Energy Web as a new member.
Caldes de Montbuí, Barcelona and Zug, Switzerland — 23 February 2021 — Today Catalonian grid operator Electra Caldense Distribució, energy retailer Electra Caldense Energia, Energy Web, and Bamboo Energy announced the launch of the joint initiative ElectraFlex. The initiative will focus on the deployment of a digital platform that will allow Electra Caldense to utilize the flexible capacity of assets connected to their electricity network. Other project partners include energy storage company CEGASA, electric vehicle charge point provider Vega Chargers, and industrial customers Top Cable and Recam Laser.
Oriol Xalabarder, CEO of Electra Group, stated: “We are very excited to join Energy Web and Bamboo Energy on this amazing project together with all other partners and are convinced that we will be generating the necessary innovation and knowledge in order to face energy transition challenges as both a 100% renewable energy retailer and a distribution system operator.”
For more than 100 years, Electra Caldense has been the distribution system operator for a region of the Spanish power grid just north of Barcelona. Today it serves more than 12,400 customers. In recent years, Electra Caldense has undertaken a number of innovation projects, including involvement in the RIS3CAT Energy Community. Electra Caldense is the lead coordinator for the NAenCAT project within RIS3CAT, which aims to be a smart grid benchmark by providing distributed sensor, remote control, and automation systems. The new ElectraFlex project announced today takes such efforts even further, by leveraging open-source, digital technologies.
ElectraFlex is the world’s first decentralized flexibility platform tailored for the specific needs of a distribution system operator (DSO). The multi-faceted flexibility platform will use Energy Web’s EW-DOS technology stack to assign digital identities to all connected assets and flexibility market participants, allowing them to self-register in energy markets, and offer services to Electra Caldense as well as the Spanish transmission system operator (REE) on behalf of their owners.
Further, Bamboo Energy’s software solution for demand aggregation will also be deployed to manage and optimize demand flexibility for two industrial companies, Top Cable and Recam Laser, a PV farm with batteries from CEGASA, and, in a second phase, a bidirectional electric vehicle charging station from Vega Chargers.
“Electra Caldense is emerging as a beacon of innovation for European grid operators,” explained Jesse Morris, chief commercial officer of Energy Web. “They’re showing how residential, commercial, and industrial customers — as well as their grid-edge energy assets — can become truly integrated parts of a dynamic, low-carbon electricity system.”
Xavi Bou, Deputy Manager at Electra Group, added: “The combination of an energy aggregation platform with a blockchain technology will allow us to broaden the scope of our services by offering innovative solutions to our clients in Spain so that we can unlock the transactive energy concept not only through demand flexibility markets but soon also on peer-to-peer energy transactions within renewable energy communities or other ecosystems.”
In the context of the ElectraFlex project, Energy Web will develop and deploy the EW SunSpec Gateway, an open-source toolkit for industrial single-board computers that will allow any distributed energy resource (DER) compliant with the SunSpec Modbus Specification to have its own digital identity on EW-DOS. “These gateways will be integrated into Bamboo energy’s demand aggregation software to model the resilience of each energy asset to enable the best strategy to maximise the value of their asset portfolio,” said Alex Gomar, CEO of Bamboo Energy. SunSpec is a trade alliance of roughly 100 solar and storage companies spanning Asia, Europe, and North America. Energy Web and SunSpec Alliance announced a strategic partnership in August 2020.
The ElectraFlex project started January 2021 and is expected to be completed by the end of July 2021.
In addition, on 17 February 2021, Electra Caldense became the newest official member of Energy Web. Electra Caldense will be hosting an EW Chain validator node and be an active part of the world’s largest energy blockchain ecosystem together with other utilities, grid operators, renewable energy developers, corporate energy buyers, and others.
About Electra Caldense (DSO)
Electra Caldense is a distribution system operator founded in 1917 and since then guaranteeing power supply to more than 12,400 users within 10 municipalities in the Vallès Oriental and Occidental regions (Barcelona), among other regions in Catalonia.
For more, please visit https://electracaldensedistribucio.com/es/
About Electra Caldense Energia (Energy Retailer)
Electra Caldense Energia is an energy retailer within Electra’s same group of companies, which commercializes 100% certified green energy to more than 12,800 clients, including residential and industrial customers.
For more, please visit https://electracaldenseenergia.com/es/
About Energy Web
Energy Web is a global, member-driven nonprofit accelerating the low-carbon, customer-centric energy transition by unleashing the potential of open-source, digital technologies. Our Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS) enables any energy asset, owned by any customer, to participate in any energy market. The Energy Web Chain — the world’s first enterprise-grade, public blockchain tailored to the energy sector — anchors the EW-DOS tech stack. The Energy Web ecosystem comprises leading utilities, grid operators, renewable energy developers, corporate energy buyers, IoT / telecom leaders, and others.
For more, please visit https://energyweb.org
About Bamboo Energy
Bamboo Energy offers a customized and flexible SaaS solution to independent aggregators and retailers to efficiently manage distributed flexibility resources. Bamboo Energy improves the aggregator operation using artificial intelligence, sophisticated mathematical models and cloud computing. At its core, it relies on the combination of advanced machine learning techniques to predict the flexibility of its clients’ portfolio and the market conditions, robust mathematical modelling and optimization algorithms for optimal portfolio management and behavior analysis. These characteristics are not present in any other aggregator software solution in the market.
For more, please visit https://bambooenergy.tech/
About CEGASA Energía
Cegasa was founded in 1934 and from the beginning we have always been a company related to electrochemical energy storage. We are manufacturers of industrial zinc-air batteries, lithium-ion batteries and energy storage solutions. Our products are developed and manufactured entirely in Europe. CEGASA has a wide range of batteries in different formats and in different energy ranges. Lithium-Ion is the rechargeable technology with the highest performance in terms of density and cycles. Added to the fact that it does not require any type of maintenance, it is the best cost-performance solution. CEGASA designs and manufactures products and solutions based on Lithium-Ion to meet the needs of energy accumulation, applied to industrial traction, mobility, stationary systems and renewable energies.
For more, please visit www.cegasa.com/en/
About Vega Chargers
Vega Chargers is a company specialized in the design of Quick Chargers (DC) for electric vehicles. At Vega Chargers we work every day to make possible a more sustainable present and future in terms of mobility, for this we analyze the needs of our clients and provide flexible and scalable charging solutions for electric vehicles, starting with conception and design and going through manufacturing and distribution. In addition, we develop comprehensive software systems that together with our charging stations are the perfect pairing to accelerate the adoption of the electric vehicle.
For more, please visit www.VegaChargers.com
