Smart building – smart grid – smart city

[LARES, University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing]

Title of expertise offered: Smart building – smart grid – smart city
Research group Laboratory for Renewable Energy Systems (LARES) on University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG-FER) pursues a concept of hierarchical and modular energy management in buildings with integrated microgrids for enabling their economically optimal interoperation in real-time (taking also into account weather forecasts).
It has finished or performs several EU and national funded projects related to implementation and testing of the energy management scheme from the level of heating/cooling consumption control in individual buildings to the level of coordination of electricity and water distribution systems within a smart city framework (ENHEMS-Buildings and FER-KIET funded by ERDF, UrbanWater and DYMASOS funded through FP7, 3CON funded through Croatian National Science Foundation).
UNIZG-FER as a public institution is situated in a complex of public buildings with capacities for piloting of different energy management schemes on its skyscraper where within its LARES premises a 48 V DC microgrid is available which comprises: controllable 1.5 kW connection with photovoltaics on a controllable two-axis tracker, controllable 2 kW connection to wind turbine emulator, 3 kW bidirectional controllable AC grid connection, 3.5 kW controllable supercapacitor connection, 3.5 kW controllable connection to 10 kWh VRLA battery stack, 2kW in – 0.5 kW out connection to electrolyzer-hydrid storage-fuel cells system. The building has controllable heating/cooling implemented on two floors of the university skyscraper building (cca. 1.500 m2 overall) via fan coils system including database server for actuators and sensory current and historical data. It has sensory equipment for detailed assessment of solar irradiance (global horizontal and tilted in 7 different planes, direct, diffuse and reflected), temperature, wind etc. on the site, as well as 20 kWp of photovoltaics on the roof that inject electricity into the faculty’s electricity distribution system.
We would like to take part in a transnational innovation cluster focussing on renewable energy, energy efficiency and smart cities topics whereas we can provide the expertise of real-time energy management that seamlessly integrates renewable energy and energy-efficiency measures in a whole that operates optimally, with a vision to hierarchically span it to vital distribution systems of a smart city – those of electricity, heat and water.
We can pull, if required, a network locally consisting of a required mix of energy agencies, local authorities and SMEs stemming from previous successful cooperations. We are also the leading organization in the Energy Platform Living Lab for South-Eastern Europe and can enable a transnational outreach through it on-board.
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Assoc. Prof. Mario Vasak, Ph.D.E.E., Laboratory for Renewable Energy Systems,
Department of Control and Computer Engineering,
University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
Unska 3, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia
tel.: +385-1-6129-821
fax: +385-1-6129-809
mario.vasak@fer.hr
http://act.rasip.fer.hr
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