226139/NFR Electricity Usage in Smart Village Skarpnes

The goal of the project "Electricity Use in the Smart Village Skarpnes" is to examine how the electrical distribution network can be designed and managed in an optimal way in the future, where new requirements in the building sector implies an increasing proportion of new "near-zero energy" houses. The introduction of low-energy housing with local energy production from photovoltaic systems is expected to provide changing consumption patterns. Although the total annual energy consumption is low, it is still unclear whether power consumption peaks will remain high.

The project collects data from the Skarpnes housing development outside Arendal, where the developer Skanska has built 5 detached zero houses which have equipped with sensors for detailed measurement of how energy and power consumption is distributed across various loads in the residence, as well as measurement of indoor climate and weather data. The houses have solar panels (PV) on the roof and are equipped with sensors for solar radiation and PV temperature in order to analyze the performance of the solar installations.

The project collaborates with Scanmatic for the design and installation of the technical measurement equipment, and with Sintef through the projects ZEB (Research Centre on Zero Emission Buildings) and EBLE-Low Energy Programme (evaluation of housing with low power requirement). The University of Agder and Teknova have in collaboration with Agder Energi Nett developed procedures for pattern recognition to identify power peaks in consumption profiles for electricity customers.

Agder Energi Nett has worked with the specifications for the equipment and procedures for voltage quality and power variation measurements with high temporal resolution at Skarpnes. The equipment is now in place in the residences and in the local grid substation. Of particular interest are results that show the coincidence factor for the aggregated power consumption in the village, and how the residential area affects the substation during different time periods of the day and year.