The Osimo pilot is progressing quite well!

Consortium member Astea has been promoting smart ways to manage electricity use in dwellings. They have always been very active in European Projects. Their focus, within the scope of LocalRES, is the optimization strategy of primary energy saving in Osimo by adopting best practices. 

Smart meters connected to the DSO [Distribution System Operator] have been installed—some of the first of their kind in Italy. These meters can communicate with smart plugs via an open chain protocol, sharing data with a provider [either Astea or consortium partner Revolt]. 

Data collection should begin in March 

Participants 

Osimo is a small town with prior involvement in similar projects, through word of mouth, finding willing participants was not a challenge. Some participants are company employees, about half of them living in Osimo, some participants had already participated in previous projects. 

The project has identified approximately 20 end-users, with about half having photovoltaic [PV] systems. These are mainly private apartments which are located in the same town and connected to the primary transformation cabin of the local DSO, forming an energy community under Italian regulation. 

Italian regulations don’t mandate geographical proximity for energy communities but this is a happy accident. 

The smart devices have already been ordered and should be available from December onwards. The installation process is simple and will take place between late January and early February. They have been tested to ensure data collection and transmission to the cloud, from which Revolt will extract the data and develop an algorithm for managing the local energy community. 

The project plans to conduct a survey after the smart device installation to assess its functionality and user-friendliness, followed by another survey at the end of the project. 

Currently, half of the intended participants have been onboarded. 

Local consumption 

Revolt will develop a local trading platform to encourage local energy consumption—this being the most efficient way to manage the mismatch between production and demand. This helps prevent  the voltage issues that typically arise when most people are at work. 

The smart plugs receive data from the building’s smart meter to help reduce grid congestion caused by surplus electricity. 

The project aims to create a “prosumer” model within what is described as a virtual energy community centered around the primary energy cabin, emphasizing the role of PV systems.