The technological solution presents several potential use cases - namely electricity consumption forecast, predictive maintenance, asset management, estimation of electricity consumption flexibility and detection of faults in the power grid, among others - but it started with the forecast of renewable energy production.

“On current platforms, for example re.alto and Ocean, the data value is usually set by the seller or automatically assigned according to auction mechanisms, rather than according to a specific use case. The innovative element of INESC TEC’s platform consists of an algorithm that allows companies to quantify the value of their data, concerning their direct utility and benefits to different applications”, explained Ricardo Bessa, coordinator of INESC TEC's Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES).

The technology, developed through funding from the European Smart4RES project and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) multiannual financing programme, comprehends the creation of a market that promotes the secure and collaborative sharing of data between different agents in the energy sector, promoting the emergence of new data-based business models. The promotion of local and distributed computing will also contribute to a reduction in the consumption of electricity associated with computing processes, thus preventing the use of supercomputers and/or data centres.

VALOREM (project's name) minimum viable product (MVP) will become available in early 2022, for technology demonstration and validation purposes. Every business client interested in monetising their data and establishing value chains for sharing information can interact with the data market and a central platform for market management. The current payments infrastructure was developed using IOTA, a distributed ledger technology. The data market algorithm is based on proprietary and patented solutions by INESC TEC for data monetisation with game theory, as well time series prediction resorting to distributed computing (federated learning) with data privacy.

The VALOREM project was recently selected as one of the five finalists on the EIT Jumpstarter. This is an annual event that receives more than 500 applications and selects the seven most promising start-ups in the fields of health, food, raw materials, energy, urban mobility, manufacturing and the New European Bauhaus.

The INESC TEC researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with INESC TEC.