International DOMINOES project aims to increase the share of renewable energy

Empower is coordinating a European research project DOMINOES, which is supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020. The project aims to improve energy efficiency, enable consumers to play a more active role and increase the share of renewable energy.

Renewable energy, the increasing need for flexibility in the energy system and the distributing energy market require new electricity market models. In the four-year project, the DOMINOES consortium will design a market mechanism and supportive IT tools to provide an energy market architecture enabling local energy communities. Furthermore, and to support the successful implementation of this architecture, a set of innovative demand response and aggregation services will be developed. Empower carries out the project in cooperation with five research institutes and two companies. The project started in October 2017.

– The key driver of the project is to tackle climate change. In contrast to similar projects, DOMINOES focuses on the design of a market mechanism that enables to increase the share of renewables and flexible use of energy. We are developing a model enabling various market players to utilize the resources as efficiently as possible and to allow access for all resources in all levels of value sharing. When the value of a resource can be shared for a variety of uses, it encourages for more investments in renewable energy, says Sirpa Repo, Development Manager at Empower.

Alongside the traditional centralized energy market, local marketplaces will emerge in the future. There active energy consumers will participate in the energy production and consumption-related activities. The project utilizes the existing distribution network infrastructure. DOMINOES also shows how flexible energy resources can be utilized in distribution system operator’s operations.

The results will be validated in three validation sites in Finland and Portugal. Empower’s energy market information system will be used in the validation.

Further information on DOMINOES project page: http://dominoesproject.eu/