On April 28th, the PlaMES consortium gathered for a general assembly which mark the half-project achievement. Still a virtual event due to the pandemic, the 6 partners were able to update each other on the progress made in the past months and plan the future activities with even more energy having seen the first models and tool prototypes taking life.
The meeting covered multiple aspects from project management activities to data structures and database build up, from models’ development and web-app first demo to the development of the future solvers, from communication, dissemination to exploitation and strategy plans at project end.
RWTH and FIT showed everyone a first glimpse of the models results covering prototypes grids for the German case or using data provided by OEDAS regarding their electrical grid in Eskişehir. Currently working on models tuning, expansion towards larger portion of the grid and looking for ways to exchange those models with the other partners, and the substantial amount of data necessary to run them, the partners will continue to work hard to find the proper solution.
Optit, the project industrial partner, also explained the status of the tool development explaining to the partners the technological stack selected, the rationale behind the first user interfaces mock-ups and showing a series of tests carried over at the beginning of SW development activities. Next months’ work will focus on the integration of models within the current tool technological framework, starting from the build-up of an advanced database for reading and writing data among partners. Involvement of all partners and the variety of knowledge and expertise is key for the final development of the main tool interfaces and the workflow for the users while interacting with the tool.
UNIBO, the academic partner with extensive experience in solving mathematical optimization problems in the consortium, explained how they plan to accelerate the model resolution while the tests will move from prototype to real grids with thousands of nodes, lines and areas to be resolved which would explode the computational time required without proper solving techniques applied.
After 1,5 year, when we were not able to meet face-to-face, the PlaMES tool is entering into a new phase of development. Model testing, physics checks, SW development, IT integration will be some of the core activities that will take place in the next months with the objective to have a proper beta version of the tool. Also thinking ahead, we are keeping the possible value propositions and the business models in mind, which are currently taking shape around it, to meet the scientific research goals and market evolutions in the multi-energy system landscape.