FINESCE WP5 Open Day and General Meeting

As we mentioned in previous posts, La Salle R&D is participating in FINESCE, the smart energy use case project of the 2nd phase, contributing to the development of an open IT-infrastructure to be used to develop and offer new app-based solutions in all fields of the Future Internet related to the energy sector.

Last week we participated in FINESCE Open Day Trial Site Ireland, in ESB Networks Training Center, in Portlaoise, where SMEs and entrepreneurs interested in the FIWARE Accelerator Programme got informed about the upcoming open calls and the opportunities of collaborating with the FINESCE trial site. We were especially involved in its organisation, because of our active participation in WP5 Stream II trial, presenting a poster showing our concept of Virtual Distribution Substation and the Hybrid Cloud infrastructure for power utilities, and contributing with  our explanations of the hardware and software expected in the Stream II trial demonstration.

The objective of this trial, is to develop a test platform for a future vertically integrated smart energy utility, emulated at the substation layer and incorporating FIWARE Generic Enablers, while inter-substation smart grid communicators will utilise an advanced geographically distributed Layer 2 switch network with a dynamic optical backplane and web services control.

Specifically the Trial will demonstrate the handling of protection information in an inter-substation WAN experiment using Generic Enablers in an automated data management system, such that critical grid data will be controlled within the utility’s private cloud, while information of more global interest will be managed in the public cloud.

During the Open Day we and the other participants had the opportunity to visit the training substation for a demonstration of the electric vehicle charging optimization system (Stream I) and the inter-substation smart grid communication utilising an advanced geographically distributed Layer 2 switch network (Stream II). We make the most of this visit, explaining also to the attendees the developments that La Salle R&D have proposed to do over this infrastructure for providing the Virtual Distribution Substation connected to the Cloud.

After that very interesting day in Portlaoise, we have another two intense days in Dublin, attending another FINESCE General Meeting in Dublin. There we got updated about the deployment of the other trials around Europe, we synchronised agendas, prepared the European Commission reviews and had several hard working sessions. However, between meetings we got the chance to take a look at the ESB electric vehicle facilities, so we have to thank ESB not only for their cordiality hosting a very good meeting but also for their openness showing us their novel facilities.

Keep following us for new information about the development of FINESCE project and more concretely the WP5 Stream II trial, in which La Salle R&D will be one of the main contributors for the IT-infrastructure for the power utilities of the future.