On 17th September, the newly established self-supply energy community in Luče (Slovenia) was presented in an open-door event. Since this community is one of the pilot sites of X-FLEX, the project presented its main works, assets installed, and benefits, with a special focus on the home electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.
The organisers of the event and also partners of X-FLEX, Petrol Elektro Celje, and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana, presented the island’s operations and individual technologies that drive the energy self-sufficiency community in Luče.
The event was a perfect occasion to kick-start the testing of the flexibility services of this infrastructure by lending members of EnC a fleet of e-vehicles, that will be used to test real-life use cases, models, and algorithms for the SERVIFLEX, GRIDFLEX, and MARKETFLEX tools.
Luče is an idyllic community, located in the eastern part of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps, in the middle of the mountains. Until recently, they faced the challenge of a weak power grid. That is why the community was encouraged to find innovative solutions in the field of a more stable electricity supply. In addition to ensuring the reliability and security of energy supply in the local energy system and contributing to the production of energy from renewable sources, and the decarbonisation of energy supply.
Luče: A Horizon 2020 demonstration site
In partnership with Petrol, the company Elektro Celje and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Ljubljana, this first Slovenian local self-sufficient energy community in the municipality of Luče was created as part of the COMPILE project in November 2018. From October 2019, X-FLEX joined the community to provide flexibility to the energy grid from DER (Distributed Energy Resources) such as community battery, home batteries, PV and EV-charging units, to enable further RES (Renewable Energy Systems) penetration in the LV network that will improve the network operating costs and operational reliability inside the area operated by the DSO.