The FLEXERGY project is coming to an end; within the scope of this initiative, INESC TEC developed a battery energy management software that integrates EFACEC's energy storage solution.

More specifically, the team from INESC TEC's Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES) was responsible for developing a software that allows the optimal operation planning and control of a battery system, considering its integration in renewable energy production parks (photovoltaic or hybrid) or in micro-grids.

The solution developed is configurable and scalable, allowing to maximise the income resulting from renewable production, minimising deviations from the production available in the electricity market or even, in the case of micro-grids, maximising self-consumption. The results were demonstrated on an EFACEC test bench.

Battery life considered in the storage management dimension

One of the main innovations of the algorithms developed by the CPES team hinges on a more detailed modelling of the batteries' behaviour, without compromising computational efficiency.

"One of the main objectives of our work was to ensure that the algorithms were able to represent what happens during the battery charging and discharging process more thoroughly, as well as the impact of the operation strategy on the batteries' useful life”, explained Clara Gouveia, in charge of INESC TEC's participation in the project.

Besides being an innovative solution, the software developed is flexible and adaptable to different business models and systems with different dimensions - it was integrated into EFACEC's ES Manager product.

The FLEXERGY project is an EFACEC project, funded by the Portugal 2020 programme. The researchers Ricardo Silva, André Garcia, Clara Gouveia, Leonel Carvalho and Jorge Pereira were responsible for the development of all INESC TEC's solutions.

All researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC.