The Hive Power FLEXO Community Manager for Distribution Service Operators (DSOs) and Energy Service Companies (ESCos)

When we discussed the relevance of decentralized energy systems to the sustainability of European power grids, we touched upon how decentralization, in coalition with the internet of things (IoT), is central to the sustainability of energy as a whole in Europe. With decentralized systems came little clusters of energy users in pockets of spaces who cohabited within a functional energy ecosystem. This ecosystem is composed of smaller energy communities.

We define an energy community as a community of prosumers who consume locally produced green energy. The flexibility that accompanies the consumption of this energy, in effect, minimizes the load imposed on the grid.

Research shows a direct relationship between population growth and energy demand and consumption. Building on this, the rapid increase in world population, & hence of Europe’s population, inevitably strains European national grids due to poorly-managed over-reliance. While this information is premised upon global statistics, the general principle guiding it is equally applicable to energy communities.

For an energy community to be sustainable, there must be proper management of the users within the scope of that community, as well as adequate handling of the assets—devices directly connected to the local grid. We concluded that the data required to make these tasks a success are impossible for humans to accurately and effectively study, clean, analyze, and train. More so, the tasks themselves require a degree of meticulousness too high and sensitive for humans alone to handle.

The reasons above are some of the cogent propulsive agents that led us to develop the Hive Power FLEXO Community Manager.

What is the Hive Power FLEXO Community Manager?

The community manager is a system that leverages the power and versatility of our Flexibility Orchestrator (FLEXO) to promptly provision energy communities with the essential software that will help them adequately manage the community members and the incentive distributions among them.

Who is the Hive Power FLEXO Community Manager For?

The primary purpose of the FLEXO technology is to guarantee energy flexibility— the ability to balance energy demand and response between the grid and the assets connected to it. Flexibility does not stop at supply and demand alone but extends to end-users. The essence of flexibility lies in adaptability, and the FLEXO community manager manifests this masterfully by being a service provider to multiple and heterogeneous end-users. Let’s briefly take a look at the beneficiaries that this technology aims to serve:

1. Distribution Service Operators (DSOs)

DSOs are operating managers or owners of energy distribution networks. They work to ensure that energy supply and demand undergo smooth implementation, facilitate proper grid network maintenance, and guarantee electricity access to every concerned member of their community.

As a DSO, How Does the Hivepower FLEXO Community Manager Benefit You?

• Manage communities in an efficient, user-friendly way

The seamless electricity flow network control across your community is at your fingertips. The software is hassle-free, easily understandable, and offers a smooth user experience.

• Engage customers with your own branded app.

Customize your app to complement you. With this, you can effectively communicate with your customers. 

• Manage infinite communities with as many members as possible

What is a flexibility orchestrator if it’s likely to be bound by space and population? The Hive Power FLEXO community manager erases this concern. The platform is capable of managing a large population size as smoothly as it would a community of few.

• Optimize the use of flexible assets

The supply and demand imbalance becomes a myth with the community manager as it affords you the privilege to supply energy according to real-time demand and harness fallow energy from assets.

2. Energy Service Companies (ESCos)

ESCos are companies that develop and build energy-saving protocols, provide energy utilities, and reduce energy costs for customers.

As an ESCo, How Does the Hive Power FLEXO Community Manager Benefit You?

• Help your customers save more and earn extra income. 

The community manager enables the identification of utilities as they relate to peak demand hours. This helps community members to draw energy only when necessary and utility users such as EV owners to save money through smart charging. You can also create an avenue for your customers to sell energy back to the grid.

• Raise incentives for your customers

Serve as the intermediary between government RE incentives and your customers. Bring them closer to similar opportunities using effective communication and accurate data analyses.

• Leverage current market prices

As the veil between your customers and the energy market, you can filter through the market prices and qualities of energy supply and bring the best of these options to your community members.

How Does the Hive Power FLEXO Community Manager Work?

To perfectly understand how the community manager operates, we must first understand the technology that steers at its heart: the FLEXO.

The Hive Power FLEXO studies sources from which it can harvest relevant data and aggregates these data for analysis. It further inspects factors that affect the relationship between assets and the grid they’re connected to. With the factors and data in hand, the FLEXO optimizes these assets for the benefit of the end-users.

Bearing this in mind, we can say the Hive Power FLEXO community manager utilizes a double-ended mode of operation: the white-label app and the platform.

The White-label App (WLA)

The WLA is the end that comes face-to-face with the user. This is where the user performs all necessary interactions and accesses all relevant information. For example, with the WLA, DSOs and ESCos can access energy usage and savings rundowns, get summaries of incentive analyses and create consumption and supply goals and preferences.

The Platform

This is the end further away from the end-user but supplies data to and takes data from the end-user while employing AI technology to:

• Run the affairs of community prosumers.
• Minimize economic and energy losses while encouraging local green energy consumption.
• Break down government incentives into comprehensive outlines.

To Wrap it Up

In 2021, the EU made key updates to the existing Renewable Energy Directives II that set the final energy consumption share from RES at 40% by 2030 and a goal to make the continent carbon-neutral by 2050.

These ambitious targets are popularizing the need for energy communities to help push the goal closer to realization. Where the Hive Power FLEXO community manager stands in all of this is the sustainability of these energy communities. 

The inflation of energy communities with no substantial control is prone to implode, and this is what we, with this development, aim to help DSOs and ESCos address while simultaneously getting the best, both economically and technically, out of community assets.

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