Update on TALENT / June 2022

Update on TALENT / June 2022

Since October 2021, the work within the TALENT project has progressed notably in all of its Work Packages. Here is a summary of what has been achieved since the last update.

WP2: Novel Power Electronics Architectures for Multi-Home Batteries

Work Package 2, which purpose is to develop a modular solution for the reduction of the costs of multi-port converters that allows the integration of energy storage and PV by moving the infrastructure from home level to building level installations, has been finalised. The last activity was the building of the TRL5 prototype for the iBatt as well as the interlinking converter.

An iBatt is an innovative solution developed in TALENT project that consists of an 8.6 kWh battery (upgradable to 13.2 kWh by using different cells) connected to an isolated DC-DC converter with a rated output voltage of 400 V, regardless of the battery voltage. This voltage rating can be updated to different values if needed by the application; considering the same hardware, voltages in the range of [350 - 450] V can be achieved.

The iBatt has been designed according to the idea of a modular approach. The modules can be stack in parallel to improve the power capability and in series to increase the voltage capability at the output side. This way we will be able to achieve 800 V for the multi-homes scale, 1500 V for the district one and 3000 V for the utility one. The first prototype is currently being validated in the relevant environments (labs) of University of Oviedo (multi-home).

The interlinking converter is a bidirectional power converter that allows for the connection of distributed resources and loads to the AC-grid. Its control architecture follows the Virtual Synchronous Generator (VSG) paradigm. It acts as the point of connection to the external distribution grid. Some integration tests have already been developed successfully.

WP3: Novel Power Electronics Architectures for District and Larger Systems Batteries

Work Package 3 deals with the development of a district scale system comprising PV generation and energy storage up to 1500 Vdc. Now it is finalized after having achieved:

• The development and characterization of a novel IGBT semiconductor, forward diode and packaging into power module.
• The design and development of a multi-port converter for the direct connection of PV and batteries at 1.5 kV.

WP4: High Voltage Battery Storage Systems

Work Package 4, which deals with high voltage battery storage systems, is going according to plans. The overall aim is to achieve a cost reduction of 20% while improving 5% of efficiency as compared to the existing one. This will be fulfilled with the development of a highly efficient / modular compact high voltage source inverter.

Works are ongoing to build the HV DC/AC converter prototype. This must be assembled and characterized until the end of 2022. Then, in the same way as with the multi-homes and district scales, the HV DC/AC converter prototype will be assembled to the battery (built by CEGASA) and the whole system will be validated. This will be done next year and will be highly challenging.

WP5: Management Software for Decentralised and Hybridised Energy Systems

Work Package 5 purpose is the development of the local and cloud Decentralised and Hybridised Energy Management System, together with the whole architecture that links the local resources with the local controller and cloud controller. WP5 has finalised recently and the latest work can be summarized below:

• Development of two versions (light and full) of a digital twin for a stationary battery have been developed. The light version provides a straightforward estimation of the battery’s State of Health and State of Charge based on available historical and current data. The full version includes advanced models to evaluate the battery’s State of Health, State of Charge, Ohmic resistance and Remaining Useful Life. These digital twins have been tested for the eBICK battery (CEGASA) and Samsung battery (SGRE).
• Implementation of several integration tests. These involved testing communication and exchange of data between the Virtual Power Plant (cyberNOC) and:
  • La Plana plant, including: PV, a battery storage system, wind power
  • Battery management system and Energy management system from University of Oviedo
  • Interoperability was checked by testing communication both with the local controller of University of Oviedo (this is the building level controller) and the local controller from Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy-La Plana
  • Battery Energy Storage System from Cegasa
  • Full digital twin from CARTIF
• Cybersecurity and safety operation: this task was divided into three subtasks:
  • Risk analysis: a risk analysis methodology has been designed that consists of creating risk scenarios and the identification of assets to protect. It has been done in the demo sites of the project. A list of assets has been identified indicating for each one: location, description and risk level. Additionally, risk scenarios have been defined. They consist of: assets, thread event, vulnerability, consequence, impact, severity and countermeasures. Thanks to this analysis, a picture of the current and emerging vulnerabilities and threats to the TALENT infrastructure was made available.
  • Attack design: for the attack design a laboratory has been set up to secure the tests and a representative use case has been selected. It describes a hypothetical remote attack to a Lithium battery pack.
  • Attack recovery: A testbed with three virtual nodes and one physical appliance (EnergyBox, developed by CIRCE) has emulated the attack and the attack recovery. Sent data has been altered in real time as a result of a cyberattack. This has been detected by the Energybox by means of an open source intrusion detection system (Snort).

WP6: Validation in Relevant Environments

In the Work Package 6, which deals with the validation in relevant environments, the  design of the validation plan for TALENT solutions was completed a few months ago, and currently the validation works are ongoing, mainly for the multi-homes and district cases.

The deployment and validation plan has been proposed in order to set the roadmap for the deployment of the TALENT solutions at the project demo-sites and a monitoring plan to gather the data needed to evaluate the developed solutions performance. The developments assessment process is based on technical, economic, environmental, social, business KPIs.

As a consequence of regulation changes in many European countries, energy systems can now be installed not only at the individual homes or dwellings but also at building (multi-home) level. In that way, the energy system can be used to reduce grid consumption for a complete building improving grid stability. Considering a building installation, it is critical to design the energy system as well as the power converter to be modular and easily scalable, allowing manufactures to adapt their products to different building sizes. In this scenario, the power converter can incorporate different energy sources (PV or micro wind for example) and storage technologies.

For WP2, iBatt modules and their integration for multi-home applications are currently being tested at the microgrid installation of the LEMUR research group in Spain (http://lemur.dieecs.com/).

The validation plan for WP3 is already finished whereas WP4 and WP5 validation plans are being deployed under their testing environments’ current works.

WP7: Cost Assessment and Exploitation Strategy

Work Package 7 objectives are:

• Modelling of the introduction of TALENT results in order to evaluate the impact on the grid from the technical and economic point of view.
• Analysing the grid and battery regulation, as well as software to manage hybridised and decentralised energy systems, in order to propose a roadmap and a strategy to develop the market.
• Defining exploitation rights among partners.

All tasks in this WP are ongoing:

• Cost benefit analysis of the proposed TALENT solutions: A calculation model has been developed to analyze the input data from previous Work Packages in economic terms. The cost-benefit assessment is based on the CAPEX and OPEX, and the revenues and/or savings estimated. A calculation tool has been designed to carry out these cost-benefit analyses for the TALENT solutions. This business model calculation tool has been developed to perform the simulation of batteries in different scenarios.
• Evaluation of the impacts of TALENT technologies for the multi-homes, district and utility cases on the grid operation.
• Assessment of the environmental performance of TALENT solutions as compared against standard ones, with a specific reference to End-of-Life management and focus on Rare Earth Use in electronics. The methodology being used is the well-known Life Cycle Assessment.
• The definition of the exploitation strategy has already started. A Draft Plan for Use and Exploitation of Foreground (PUEF) was prepared by the end of September 2021. The first activities have been:
  • Definition and identification of project results: 8 results have been identified.
  • Preliminary characterization of Key Exploitable Results.
  • Technology Readiness Level evaluation of TALENT Key Exploitable Results to be prioritized.
  • Draft exploitation strategies both at partner and consortium level.
  • Preliminary Intellectual Property Rights monitoring and protection strategies.
• TALENT Roadmap and business models to promote Key Exploitable Results: business models will be developed in accordance with the partners involved in the identified Key Exploitable Results.