The demonstrator in Denmark is the village of Voerladegård, which also includes the smaller village of Dørup located in the Skanderborg Municipality. There are around 600 residents altogether, living mostly in villas and a few in townhouses. Houses in Voerladegård and Dørup are currently heated by individual gas boilers.
The demonstration activities aim to realise the integration between renewable based electricity in the local power grid and heating systems in 20 households in the community to replace the existing heating systems supplied by gas boilers. Also, solar PV systems for electric vehicle charging is to be installed and tested in the neighbourhood at several houses in coordinated control with the heat-pumps. These activities are to be demonstrated with close cooperation and active participation of the local citizens, municipality, energy stakeholders and local industries, and use of smart control and ICT technologies to smarten the energy networks to increase the self-consumption of solar PV and wind power supplied from external grid. The specific objectives for the Danish demonstrators include:
- Demonstration of smart control and energy management of salt phase change material (PCM) storage based heat pumps (HP) in synergy with solar PV systems in residential households.
- Demonstration of solar PV system charging of electric vehicles and application of suitable demand-side response scheme for coordinated control of heat-pumps and electrical vehicles.
- Impact assessment of community integrated energy system on the local distribution grid for smartening its operation, maximise use of renewable and cheaper electricity from the grid, thereby establishing economic benefits to the citizens and stakeholders.
- Develop and demonstrate novel business and community based ownership models for operating the smart microgrid based solar PV-HP-EV energy systems where energy can be shared between households in the community within a regulatory test zone.