SMART ELECTRIC LYON
Work with citizens, businesses, and municipalities to develop the tools required to transform energy consumers into prosumers
CHALLENGES
A decade ago France’s gas and electric utility markets were deregulated. In 2009, a law was passed requiring the separation of gas and electricity production, transportation, distribution, and sales. At the same time, smart buildings, cities, and electricity grids began to take hold. It was amid these profound shifts on the energy market that the Smart Electric Lyon project kicked off in 2012.
The Smart Electric Lyon project was led by France’s historic electric utility EDF and involved a consortium of 21 partners from academia and industry. The project’s objective was clear: to work with citizens, businesses, and municipalities across the Greater Lyon area to develop the tools required to transform energy consumers into prosumers and, ultimately, encourage all consumers to take steps to reduce their energy consumption.
The cornerstone of the project—and the basic building block of the smart grid—is the Linky communicating electricity meter. An impressive 35 million of the meters will be installed by 2021. According to the European Commission, smart grids must enable energy producers and consumers to play a proactive role with the end goal of ensuring an efficient, sustainable, economical, and secure electricity supply.
Smart Electric Lyon, the first-ever large-scale demonstrator to address the consumer side of the electricity meter, focused on three challenges:
- Understand citizens’, businesses’, and local governments’ motivations and, as a result, identify the actions they could potentially take to reduce their energy consumption
- Test monitoring and management interfaces to create the solutions that will help better control energy spending in the future
- Analyze behaviors to identify ways to limit peaks in demand
- Assess business models for disseminating consumer-side solutions
- Play an active role in developing smart home and smart building standards
The project roadmap initially focused on flexibility or, in other words, active demand management services. These services would give consumers the capacity to temporarily curb their consumption on a non-recurring basis in response to an outside signal of some kind (a higher tariff or a load-shedding request from a utility, for example).
Information
Over the course of the Smart Electric Lyon project, 25,000 participants tested and provided feedback on the tools and solutions provided by the project partners. The information gathered will serve as a valuable resource and source of inspiration for the development of equipment, software, and solutions to help consumers effectively manage their consumption in the future.
Results:
- Eighteen hardware and equipment solutions connected to the Linky communicating electricity meter were installed and tested. The experimental rollout provided an opportunity to assess how well the solutions meet users’ needs and to test the transmission of data between the home, energy producer, and energy distributor.
- Several interfaces, including a two-day display of energy consumption in real time and energy consumption tracking in KWh and euros, were available to the testers to help them to better understand and manage their consumption; these interfaces contributed to successful load shedding.
- A report was given to the testers every two months to help them understand their consumption habits; the testers also received a comparison of their consumption with that of similar households. This did not require any specific additional equipment.
- A wealth of data was gathered over the course of the project. This was due to the many fields—economics, ergonomics, sociology, statistics, and modelling—included in the scope of the project.
- A missing link—a local radio transmitter—between the electricity meter and household equipment was developed. A two-band (KNX RF Multi and ZigBee 3.0) radio module sends information from the Linky meter (the meter’s “Remote Customer Information” system) to the home’s energy-producing and energy-consuming equipment; this information can also be used to manage the equipment.
- Standards were written based on the eight smart home use cases and fourteen smart building use cases developed during the project.
Growth
The Smart Electric Lyon showroom, which has already welcomed some 9,000 visitors including delegations representing 45 different nationalities, showcases the local ecosystem’s know-how in the field of energy management for smart cities. The showroom’s popularity is evidence of worldwide interest in energy savings.
In France, downtown Lyon’s Part-Dieu neighborhood—currently undergoing a major urban renewal project that will continue through 2030—could benefit directly from the lessons of the Smart Electric Lyon project. The Smart Electric Lyon project partners are planning to launch a Smart Electric Lyon 2 project to develop simpler, more comprehensive solutions for all types of consumers (residential, commercial, government).
Outlook
The Smart Electric Lyon showroom, which has already welcomed some 9,000 visitors including delegations representing 45 different nationalities, showcases the local ecosystem’s know-how in the field of energy management for smart cities. The showroom’s popularity is evidence of worldwide interest in energy savings. In France, downtown Lyon’s Part-Dieu neighborhood—currently undergoing a major urban renewal project that will continue through 2030—could benefit directly from the lessons of the Smart Electric Lyon project. The Smart Electric Lyon project partners are planning to launch a Smart Electric Lyon 2 project to develop simpler, more comprehensive solutions for all types of consumers (residential, commercial, government).
Financing
The French government’s economic stimulus package via French energy agency ADEME and the Commissioner General for Investment
Project consortium
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