GridTools
We are headed towards a society powered by renewable power sources. The demand for green power is therefore increasing rapidly.
Traditionally, increased power demand has required the DSOs to build more grid. Smarter ways to utilize the existing power grid can postpone or even avoid building new grids.
A new grid has a long lead time before it is operational, is costly to build, and also has a negative impact on the nature where it is built.
What is GridTools?
GridTools is a modular decision support tool to improve the operation of regional and local distribution grids.
The tool's automated process enables the DSO to forecast and even prevent potential problems in the grid by the use of flexible resources.
A new digital value chain
GridTools is a part of the new digital value chain for flexibility in the grid.
GridTools is the system operator's tool aiming to simplify and possibly avoid manual intervention when there is a problem in the grid. To be able to do this some infrastructure must be in place:
- A flexibility market providing enough flexibility volumes to actually solve problems.
- Commercial aggregators with goals to aquire, aggregate and offer flexibility to the market.
- Technical aggregators able to activate the flexible resources when needed.
When the infrastructure is in place, GridTools will be able to predict and avoid congestion and voltage problems in the grid
Below are shown some of the use-cases scenarios for GridTools, from low and medium voltage in the local distribution system, to medium and high voltage in the regional distribution system. Note that it is possible to model N-1 and N-0,9 cases as well.
Customers and projects
GridTools was first released in 2016 for the Norflex project with Agder Energi as the first customer. Then Elvia started with the "Mikroenergisystem Furuset" project and followed up in the Nextgrid and Euroflex projects. A large amount of partners, aggregators and DSOs have joined these projects.
Press releases:
