iURBAN: Making consumers “Prosumers”
The iURBAN project, an EU-funded project coordinated by Sensing & Control Systems S.L., develops a smart decision support system (SmartDSS) which collects and analyses data on energy consumed by people and produced by power plants, EV charging stations and buildings.
More Transparency, better Planning
The increase of energy consumption is one of the main issues private consumers, governing officials and the industry are confronted with. Especially the lack of information concerning individual energy consumption is one of the reasons why planning efficient energy production and consumption is difficult. Therefore, the project iURBAN aims at providing new technologies to make it easier for consumers to understand their energy consumption and at the same time help providers plan energy production more efficiently and more sustainably.
iURBAN provides Tools for a Smarter City
The iURBAN project, an EU-funded project coordinated by Sensing & Control Systems S.L., develops a smart decision support system (SmartDSS) which collects and analyses data on energy consumed by people and produced by power plants, EV charging stations and buildings. As explained on the coordinator’s website, SmartDSS is a customized energy management and control platform within the framework of a city. The results of these analyses will help suggest optimization plans for both consumers and producers.
Since a smart city needs smart citizens, the tool aims to include private households into the system. In order to do so, the SmartDSS is a two-level decision support system. The first level is called Local Decision Support System (LDSS) and focuses on consumers and how they use energy. The objective of the system is to engage consumers by collecting near real-time data from installed Distributed Energy Resources (DER). This data will then be displayed on a user-friendly interface. By doing so, people will be able to track their personal energy consumption. This system also aims at turning consumers into prosumers by helping them produce energy that can be redistributed to other users. IUrban offers the tools needed to overcome possible technical and financial obstacles and to be able to create personal renewable energy systems.
The second level of this decision support system is the Centralized Decision Support System (CDSS). It collects all the data from the LDSSs, analyses it and eventually provides information that supports authorities and energy service providers. They can use the information to generate a number of parameters that will include city-wide energy production and consumption forecasts. These forecasts can help providers improve their demand and supply, they can make trend-based decisions on pricing, resource allocation and asset utilization more easily.
Pilot Cities Prove Efficiency of Project
Two European cities, Plovdiv in Bulgaria and Rijeka in Croatia, participated in the implementation of the tools created for iURBAN. In Plovdiv 30 buildings were equipped including residential buildings, kindergartens, high schools, public and official buildings as well as an EVN CHP plant. In the seven kindergartens, for example, solar panels for self-hot water production were installed.
In Rijeka a new remote metering system was installed in 26 objects, it enabled real-time readings of energy meter and water. To be able to prove the efficiency of these measurements, eight customers had smart home systems installed in their homes. These systems allowed the consumers to monitor and manage heating and electricity. The results of this pilot show that the measurements decreased the energy consumption by 10 percent.