The main impact of the S3C project on KIBERnet was to strengthen the focus on end users, i.e. to not only analyse their needs from a technological point of view, but to take into account the needs of industrial customers that used the new applications. In particular, the recruitment process was consolidated and the allocation of flexible energy was revised. Additionally, certain points of the evaluation, which concentrated on dedicated performance indicators and baseline calculation, were examined.

The series of guidelines on incentives were analysed, but due to the advanced stage of the project they were not implemented. Nevertheless the ideas of nonfinancial and nonmonetary incentives resulted in interesting ideas for the motivation of end users in future engagement processes.

The goal of the KIBERnet project was to set up a system to the pilot stage and set it ready for the commercial use. The end users obligated themselves to participate actively and made their loads accessible for the investigation of the project. In exchange, they received the automated solution of the demand response system free of charge, which will bring profits when the service will pass to a commercial stage.

The end user candidates for participation were selected from the pool of SMEs from various branches according to technical characteristics and personal contacts. Those selected end users were invited to the engagement workshop for the project demonstration. After this step, each selected end user went through the detailed technical analyses of the production process, finishing with the installation of the KIBERnet equipment.

During the operation phase the interactions with the end user were mainly carried out within the automated algorithm for demand response. The end users had an option to monitor the demand response activities online through a web application (see pictures below). This technology is designed to support the contractual relationship between service provider and the commercial/industrial customers. The contract defines the obligated flexibility capacity, adaptation frequency, penalties and optionally also the incentives for demand response.

In the KIBERnet project, the commercial customers were treated as smart consumers, receiving and realizing the requirements from the service provider. The end user wanted to avoid the risk of failure or losses due to introduction of the demand response changes affecting his core business. Therefore, the automated control solution was adapted to those requirements resulting in limited behavioural change while optimising financial benefits. 

Picture: KIBERnet Project, snapshot of the service provider control, source: KIBERnet

Picture: KIBERnet Project, snapshot of the end user adaptation monitoring, source: KIBERnet

Due to the fact that the S3C partner INEA also led the project KIBERnet, a direct contact to the consortium was enabled. The KIBERnet project finished just before the S3C project but the project partners showed interest to participate in the S3C project as an active pilot and to contribute with their experiences as end users from the industrial segment. 

The first workshop with the consortium was organized to detect common interest for collaboration. The result was the agreement to focus on guidelines on business relationships and business models. Furthermore, a collaboration on guidelines about the technical characteristic of demand response capabilities (depending on the regular end user production processes and evaluation methods) was agreed upon. A series of workshops resulted in the investigation of the following guidelines:

• Guideline: Introducing demand side management to SMEs

• Tool: Questionnaire for engaging SMEs

• Tool: How to estimate your load shifting potential

• Guideline: Using flexibility manually or automatically

• Guideline: How to monitor demand response performance

• Guideline: KPIs for energy consumption effects

• Guideline: How to create a consumption baseline

• Guideline: Designing a dynamic tariff

• Guideline: Bonus & malus – changing behaviour with rewards and penalties

• Guideline: Testing tariff schemes in a pilot context

• Guideline: Choosing and combining monetary and non-monetary incentives

• Guideline: Choosing from different types of monetary incentives

• Guideline: Choosing from different types of non-monetary 

The financially oriented guidelines were used to elaborate ideas about incentives and on how to build a proper business relationship between end users and service providers (win-win). Those guidelines remained untested for two reasons: 1.) The project has not gone into the commercial phase yet and 2.) The guidelines did not pay much attention to automated solutions and SMEs. 

The guidelines dealing with the recruitment and demand response processes were used and tested, to revise the existing process and to test new end user candidates. One of the candidates was very interested in those services and further activities were planned.

The guidelines regarding the evaluation were used to define parameters for the demand response efficiency and to improve the calculation for accounting incentives. The project KIBERnet found some performance indicators about the adaptation of energy consumption, which can be compared to the demand response efficiency of particular consumers. The guideline about the calculation of the consumption reference gave important information about the handling of individual specifics, when defining the incentive terms in the contract.