After several projects such as Solenn and Smart Grid Vendée, time is now for feedback from the “IssyGrid” project.
In 2012, the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux, in association with a dozen major partners (Bouygues Energies & Services, Bouygues Immobilier, Bouygues Telecom, EDF, EMBIX, Enedis, Microsoft, Schneider Electric, Sopra Steria, Total) launched one of the first Smart Grid demonstrators in France, with the deployment of solar panels in two eco-neighbourhoods, both connected to the same smart electricity grid.
First developed within the business district (160,000 m² of office space, or 10,000 employees), the project was extended to Fort d’Issy in 2015 (2,000 housing units, or 5,000 inhabitants). From 2016 to 2017, the project will gradually integrate the Issy RER station, the neighbourhood restaurants and the EFB (École de Formation du Barreau). The EFB has 300 m² of solar photovoltaic panels on its roof, making it an energy autonomous building.
Connected sensors have made it possible to continuously monitor the energy consumption of these neighbourhoods. Soon, engineers realized that production peaks were not always absorbed by local demand. This excess production was therefore stored in batteries for reuse when buildings need it most. “New batteries were too expensive to be profitable”, explains Christian Grellier, R&D and ‘open innovation’ director at Bouygues real estate. “We therefore entered into an agreement with Renault, which provided us with the batteries for its electric vehicles, which have become less efficient. Despite energy losses, it ensures that it becomes profitable to store electricity with second-hand batteries. Thus, in some buildings, about half of the electricity consumption was produced by locally installed renewable energy sources.
The other major component of the project was to develop better monitoring of consumption. Individuals and businesses had access to a dashboard detailing their consumption, on a hourly basis, thanks to information collected by Linky’s communicating meters. In this field, IssyGrid had opened the way by defining with the National Commission on Informatics and Liberties a procedure to guarantee to the Issy inhabitants that their personal data would not be collected or used.
Among the lessons learned by the project partners are, first of all, a series of technical challenges, such as the installation of photovoltaic panels and storage systems unique in France, the installation of a new generation distribution station with additional equipment that can be controlled remotely, or the installation of connected streetlights equipped with presence detectors and programmed to reduce their lighting by 30% at night. A total of fourteen interconnected information and storage systems are used to monitor the district’s energy flow. The project promoters were able to see the interest in developing smart grids with the new Linky meter.
The partners also highlight an effective management method, “based on test & learn “. ” IssyGrid has made us aware that it is possible to work in good intelligence. In the future, we will approach this type of project together and not alone”.
To meet the various energy challenges, the “ industrialists have implemented new technical solutions as well as new forecasting and management tools, particularly in the field of photovoltaics: the operation of the French Barreau School in terms of energy self-consumption has been made possible thanks to significant progress in the storage of the energy produced. In particular, Total has rethought the traditional photovoltaic schemes in order to offer a simple and innovative connection to the internal building network, a much more economical method without disrupting school activity“. At the district level, Bouygues Energies & Services has also worked on the implementation of regulated street lighting, with dimming at night according to the time of day in order to save energy.
IssyGrid® also marked the arrival of a new reference player, Embix, specialized in energy solutions for smart cities.
IssyGrid® has demonstrated, according to Issy City Hall, ” the effectiveness of implementing a smart grid based on existing assets. Now the experience can be replicated on different scales, and with different actors… We wish to capitalize and reuse the know-how acquired in Issy-les-Moulineaux for the design of future positive energy districts, in particular in “Issy Cœur de Ville” which will be the 3rd eco-neighbourhood of the municipality after that of Le Fort and Les Bords-de-Seine, but also in Nanterre where a 70,000 m² eco-neighbourhood with a smart grid based on heat is launched.
The ten industrialists in the IssyGrid consortium intend to capitalize on and reuse the know-how acquired for the design of future positive energy districts.
Sources :
Mairie d’Issy : IssyGrid, un succès qui ouvre la voie au modèle français du smart grid
Bouygues : Issygrid passe à l’action !
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