Distributed renewable energy technologies such as PV offer a number of benefits to modern electricity businesses, particularly in respect of their relatively benign environmental impact, potential infrastructure support role and increasingly their role in addressing supply security. At the same time, for an industry and infrastructure that has historically been built around centralized, despatchable power plants, distributed generation – particularly from intermittent renewables sources such as solar and wind – poses a variety of problems.

How can numerous micro-generators be safely accommodated within the distribution network? What system controls are required? How can supply and demand be effectively managed with resource-variable power generation? Answers to these questions become more urgent with increasing penetration of renewable and other micro-generation equipment on the network – penetration which is being urgently driven by national, regional and international policies.

The ‘IRED’ initiative (Integration of Renewable Energy Sources and Distributed Generation into the European Electricity Grid) is aiming to coordinate European research and technological development (RTD) and link with other international experience to address these increasingly pressing issues. IRED is an umbrella programme which initially incorporates a cluster of 7 RTD projects funded under the European Commission’s Fifth Framework Programme. This cluster represents a total budget of about 35 million EUR (45,6 million USD), covering aspects such as policy and regulatory roadmaps, analysis of storage technologies, high penetration of renewable energy sources on low voltage grids, and intelligent monitoring, management and control systems. It involves over 100 participating institutions from research, industry and the utility sector.

IRED expects to build on these initial projects to identify and mobilize further activities through the Sixth Framework as well as at national and international levels. The coordination function covers information exchange through improved links to relevant research, regulatory and policy bodies and schemes, organization of common initiatives on standards, testing procedures and education, as well as research prioritization.

Information

• http://ired-cluster.org

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