S3C Toolkit

About the InovGrid project 

EDP Distribuição is the EDP Group company operating as the Portuguese incumbent Distribution System Operator (DSO), and distributes electricity to more than 6 million customers in Portugal with a network of more than 220.000 km. InovGrid is an innovative program by EDP, designed from the bottom-up to address the evolution towards smarter grids in an integrated way. This comprises dealing with the rising number of Distributed Energy Resources (DER), provision of detailed information to the consumer to promote their active participation in energy efficiency, as well as public lighting control, the integration of the electric vehicle infrastructure and efficient monitoring of assets.

The InovGrid solution enables and promotes a more active role for customers/producers; it represents a support platform for new commercial services, based on greater proximity to the customer; it promotes commitment to renewable energies, environmental protection and reducing CO2 emissions; it fuels the proliferation of micro-generation; and it fosters the renewal of technologies and the improved harnessing of current capabilities.

Learnings from S3C

As a member of the S3C consortium, EDP had the opportunity to test tools & guidelines for end user engagement within a theoretical and scientific framework. In this video, Mr. António Aires Messias and Mr. João Martins Silva from EDP explain how they took part in S3C.

"S3C provided learnings about how to best engage end users in a smart grid environment, on various topics such as: meter installation process, stakeholder engagement, gamification and use of the home energy management system. From the beginning of smart grid deployment, EDP recognized that only a broad approach involving all the stakeholders, including the non-energy ones, is a fundamental requirement for engagement of end users. Also, we understood much better how to learn from different methodologies, since other geographies have different challenges with end-users involvement towards smart grid projects."

"Having the customer, citizen and  consumer  at the center of S3C strategy, EDP Distribuição ‘s approach for the implementation of the several initiatives was that clear value creation for customer could be achieved by testing S3C tools and guidelines. It showed that not only technology educated customers, but also ordinary electricity customers, whose focus is mostly on the reduction of the electricity bill had to be engaged." 

Gamification 

A key purpose of InovGrid is to study consumer behavior and to enable and encourage direct involvement of consumers by providing information about their energy consumption. To this end, a dedicated Gamification platform was specially developed based on the S3C Gamification guideline. From the standpoint of the consumer, the ability to understand their consumption patterns through this game and to act accordingly, is something completely new. In the video below, you can see how EDP has implemented the gamification platform in the town of Alcochete (PT).