ETIP Photovoltaics

Digital PV and Grid

Digitalisation is essential to enabling the massive deployment of photovoltaics in the energy system.

Digitalisation is essential to enabling the massive deployment of photovoltaics in the energy system. Indeed, the decentralised nature of PV creates opportunities, for example by enabling individuals to become active contributors to the transition. It also creates significant challenges for the design and operation of the power system. To keep operation and transaction costs in checks, novel, PV-specific methods need to be more scalable, robust, and automatically replicable than what has been used for more centralised generators.

The objective of the working group work is to define use cases and research needs. Its work combines inputs from practitioners with assessments of the state of the art (scientific literature, patent landscaping, gap analysis) to define roadmaps and propose research themes. The group provides networking opportunities among technical and market experts. It complements existing groups such as SolarPower Europe's digitalisation working group (whose focus is more on regulation) and ETIP SNET's working group 4 (whose scope is much broader and takes a technology-agnostic view to generation).

The "Digital PV systems and grid" working group focuses on these challenges. It addresses in particular:

optimal design, web services, application of artificial intelligence including image processing

 predictive maintenance, application of IoT for operations and maintenance, cost/benefit analysis on data-driven solutions, machine learning

optimal interaction with other energy system components such as battery storage systems, machine learning for forecasting, application of artificial intelligence to supervisory and distributed control

reduction of transaction costs in consumer-centric markets, local energy communities, trust and traceability (e.g., with blockchain)
Special role of the inverter as data collection hub, control interface with high computing power and low inertia

Leader:

Venizelos Efthymiou, FOSS

Co-Leader:

Pierre-Jean Alet, CSEM

WG Members:

Giovanna Adinolfi, ENEA

Greg Arrowsmith, EUREC

Gofran Chowdhury, 3E

Saverio De vito, ENEA

Giorgio Graditi, ENEA

Barchi Grazia, Eurac Research 

Jonathan Leloux, Lucisun

Sara Mirbagheri Golroodbari, University of Utrecht

Marion Perrin, Energy-Pool

Ioannis Tsanakas, CEA Ines

Working Group publications

Assessing the need for better forecasting and observability of PV

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PV generation is fit for modern, active power networks - Update 2017 (August 2017)

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GRID INTEGRATION WHITE PAPER OF THE EU PV TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM: PHOTOVOLTAICS MERGING WITH THE ACTIVE INTEGRATED GRID

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Data, AI, IoT: Opportunities and Challenges for PV Innovation (EU PVSEC 2023)

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