S3C Toolkit

The KIBERnet project in Slovenia aims to develop and demonstrate Demand Side Management based technologies in the industrial sector. Danilo Lenart, Energy Manager at KOTO d.o.o., was involved in KIBERnet and during the project, S3C researchers provided guidance and support based on the S3C toolkit.

Danilo Lenart (picture provided by KOTO d.o.o.)

What is your project about?

“Our project consortium consists of engineering companies as technology providers, distribution system operator, research institutes and industrial partners as prosumers. The company KOTO d.o.o. - a leading company for the collection, processing and trading of animal by-products in Slovenia - has joined KIBERnet as an industrial consumer of energy and as a reference representative of the waste processing industry. We decided to participate in KIBERnet with the aim to explore and learn about potentials of rational energy management.” 

What challenges do you encounter dealing with energy issues?

“Our company is an intensive energy consumer, therefore we always try to optimise costs and quality of energy services available on the market. We have tried to address energy related challenges such as high costs of peak consumption and most suitable pricing mechanisms ourselves by seeking solutions that fit best our needs. Furthermore, being sceptical towards unproven smart grid solutions before joining KIBERnet and S3C we also felt rather uncomfortable letting others to control our energy consumption and receiving and storing our energy data.”

How did S3C help you?

“The S3C toolkit website helped us to understand the smart consumers’ role and made us better prepared for the possible changes towards more dynamic energy markets. S3C has organised several workshops for us and other KIBERnet industrial partners and has provided us comprehensive, yet concise information on wide array of topics related to smart energy consumption. This has enabled us to get familiar not only with the potential of demand side management (DSM) in general but with the DSM potential available in our company in particular.”

What did you learn from this process?

“We have recognised the potentials of automatically operated energy consumption for cost effective, accurate and reliable control of energy consumption. By joining KIBERnet we have solved most of our technological concerns regarding participation in a DSM programme and have learnt about automated energy consumption management.”

“Furthermore, the practical demonstration of KIBERnet and the broader reasoning of the S3C project triggered us with the mind shift that also KOTO can be an active player in the envisioned smart energy systems of the future.”