Integrating the Tallaght Smart Energy Living Lab for Smart Grid and enerXchange Research.

Project Description

The Tallaght Smart Energy Test-Bed is an energy research infrastructure with live consumers ('Living-Lab'), for conducting research on low-carbon energy solutions that involves engaging communities. The project involved both - Technical research, such as application of storage technologies; commercial research such as new business models; as well as providing information to policy makers and regulators. All consumers in the Test-Bed are willing to participate in relevant research. The project involves partnership between South Dublin County Council (SDCC) and the Micro Electricity Generation Association (MEGA), and is operated by MPOWER. The Test-Bed is powered by MPOWER's Smart-Grid enerXchange system. It has a symbiotic relationship with the Test-Bed: enerXchange enables much of the research in the Test-Bed, while the Test-Bed enables research crucial for enerXchange development. The Test-Bed has a wide feature set, a result from a strict focus of earlier development projects on one specific technology or infra-structure. But it has caused some fragmentation, and as the Energy Transition matures, integration of systems and platforms such as Smart Cities will become more important. The theme for the Test-Bed for the next few years is therefore integration. This project is the first step. It will integrate the Smart-City, Wireless M2M LoRa network and the micro-District Heating system with the enerXchange Prosumer Dashboard, and the solar PV microgrid in County Hall with MPOWER's battery array.