Issue 2 / 2015

Increasing the penetration of renewable energy sources in the distribution grid by developing control strategies and using ancillary services.


Dear readers,

The FP7 project INCREASE (Increasing the penetration of renewable energy sources in the distribution grid by developing control strategies and using ancillary services) was initiated in September 2013. The project duration is 40 months, the project focuses on how to manage renewable energy sources in LV and MV networks and provide ancillary services (towards DSOs but also TSOs). More information is available at: http://www.project-increase.eu.

This newsletter will not only give you information about ongoing initiatives, policy news, past and upcoming events but also an overview of the project results.

With best regards,
The INCREASE dissemination team

INCREASE Mid Term Conference - July 1st 2015, Eindhoven, the Netherlands

(Photo Credits: Wikipedia)
The INCREASE Mid Term Conference is taking place in Eindhoven on July 1st 2015 in parallel with PowerTech 2015. The theme of this conference is “Facilitating the transition to DSOs with high RES penetration: how to face voltage problems in low and medium voltage grids?”. More information about this event and how to subscribe is available here.

INCREASE – Overview of our first results and ongoing work

Preparations for the field trials ongoing

Once the developed control strategies have been simulated in the simulation platform and tested in the laboratory environments, they will be tested in the real life field. There will be four field trials across Europe: in Austria, Belgium, Slovenia and the Netherlands. During the project meeting in Aachen, it was decided what would be tested and where, and what will be the different locations.

Read more about the INCREASE field trials...

The INCREASE scheduling control: how does it work?

The Scheduling Control Agent (SCA) developed by the INCREASE team will use the flexibility of demand response (DR) in order to help mitigate problems in the low voltage network and make optimal economical dispatch of DR units. The SCA acts as an aggregator of individual DR units and provides them with an access to the price signal of the wholesale electricity market. In the process of scheduling the DR units, the SCA scheduling algorithm takes into account different parameters of DR units and dispatches them according to the set boundary conditions and the chosen objective function.

Read more about the scheduling control...

5th General Assembly of the European Technology Platform on SmartGrids

The European Technology Platform on SmartGrids (ETP SG) celebrated on the 29th of April 2015 its 5th General Assembly (GA) in Brussels. The event was attended by over 200 participants. The ETP SG (European Technology Platform on SmartGrids) was established in 2006, as a member of the European Technology Platforms (ETPs). European Technology Platforms play an integral role in mobilizing Europe’s research, technological development, and innovation efforts.

Read more about the 5th ETP SmartGrids General Assembly...

Visit to Aspern - Vienna’s Urban Lakeside

During the Smart Grids Week in Vienna, where INCREASE was also presented, an excursion to Aspern - Vienna’s Urban Lakeside was organized. During the excursion the main concepts of Aspern were presented. Vienna's Urban Lakeside is located 20 km east of Vienna. With an area of 240 hectares, equivalent to 340 football pitches, a complete new "Smart City" will be developed in several phases over the next 20 years.

Read more about Aspern - Vienna’s Urban Lakeside...

INCREASE papers

Conference paper CIRED 2015 accepted

UMons in cooperation with Ghent University submitted a conference paper for the CIRED 2015 conference in Lyon in June 2015. This paper is titled “Probabilistic assessment of P/V droop control of PV inverters”.

Read the abstract of the paper here...

INCREASE poster presented at the Smart Grids Week in Vienna, May 18th 22nd 2015.



Read more about this conference...

Related projects and policy initiatives

Common event in Aachen

In the month of March 2015, the 4 sister projects (DREAM, evolvDSO, IDE4L and INCREASE) met in Aachen, Germany, to discuss the future role of the DSOs. Each project presented their solution and an interesting discussion resulted from this. More cooperation events will be planned in the future.

ENTSO-E position paper on developing TSO and DSO roles for the benefit of consumers

Consumers have an increasingly active role in the electricity market, due to the development of renewable energy sources and of demand-side response. This paper identifies the required changes in the TSO-DSO interface in order to unlock consumers potential as electricity producers and balancing actors while increasing consumers choice, electricity affordability and reliability.

Read more about this position paper...

INCREASE meetings and presentations during the past 6 months
In January 2015 there was a technical meeting of INCREASE in Graz, Austria. During this meeting the main focus was on the scheduling control and how this will be developed and tested. In March 2015 all the consortium partners met in Aachen, Germany. During the 1st two days the focus was on the general project progress of all WPs, on the 3rd day the INCREASE Advisory Board met for the 2nd time to give their feedback on our proposed solutions at progress. The INCREASE consortium is constantly contacted to present the proposed INCREASE solutions at conferences and workshops, and this all over Europe. Read more about the presence of INCREASE in Prishtina (Kosovo), Paris (France), Istanbul (Turkey), Vienna (Austria), Portorož (Slovenia), Eindhoven (the Netherlands) and Lyon (France) on the project website.
Upcoming events
Check our events webpage for more


CIRED 2015, Lyon, France, June 15-18 2015More about this conference

Powertech 2015, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, June 29-30 & July 1-2 2015More about this conference

INCREASE Mid-Term Conference Eindhoven, the Netherlands, July 1 2015More about this conference

4th International Conference on Smart Grid Systems (ICSGS 2015), Lisbon, Portugal, July 13-14 2015Conference website


CoSSMic public workshop on Smart Energy, Konstanz, Germany, July 13-14 2015More about this workshop
INCREASE Summer School, Ghent, Belgium, July 14-17 2015 More about this event

Sustainable Places 2015, Savona, Italy, September 16-18 2015More acout this conference

AMPS 6th annual 2015 IEEE International Workshop, Aachen, Germany, September 23-25 2015More about this conference

Contacts & imprint

Project Coordinator

Dr. Ir. Bart Meersman
Mail: bart.meersman@ugent.be
Phone: +32 497 66 71 68

Sophie Gillaerts
Mail: sophie.gillaerts@ugent.be
Phone: +32 9 264 57 02

Dissemination Leader

Mag. Andreas Türk, MBA
Mail: andreas.tuerk@joanneum.at
Phone: +43 316 876 1337