COPOWER Webinar Summary: Virtual Power Plants and Smart Energy Systems Across the NPA area

The event provided an overview of practical applications and pilot studies aimed at decentralising and optimising energy systems.

Introduction to VPPs and the COPOWER Project

The webinar commenced with an introduction by Fabian Sander from Centria University of Applied Sciences (Finland), who defined the concept of Virtual Power Plants. The presentation explained how distributed energy resources—such as solar photovoltaics (PV), batteries, and smart appliances—can be digitally aggregated to function similarly to a traditional power plant.

Following this, Michael McBride from ERNACT (Ireland) introduced the COPOWER project, outlining its objectives to support community energy initiatives and improve regional energy efficiency through transnational collaboration.

Residential Applications: IoT and Battery Storage

The first technical sessions focused on decentralised energy management at the domestic level.

• IoT Integration (Finland): Terho Iso-Junno from the University of Oulu (Finland) presented a case study on optimising energy consumption in a residential house. The research highlighted how combining PV installations with IoT architecture and smart devices allows for automated, data-driven energy management.

• Battery Energy Storage (Iceland): Rúnar Unnþórsson from the University of Iceland discussed a residential pilot utilising PV paired with a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), focusing on how storage solutions manage supply and demand variations within the Icelandic context.

Brief question-and-answer sessions followed each presentation, allowing participants to discuss the technical specifications and scalability of the residential models.

Institutional and Agricultural Scaling

The final segment of the webinar addressed the application of VPP configurations to public infrastructure and larger-scale agricultural operations.

• Public Authority Buildings (Ireland): Paul Early from Donegal County Council (Ireland) provided a public sector perspective on VPPs. The presentation covered the potential for local authorities to aggregate energy systems across municipal buildings to manage peak loads and reduce regional grid pressure.

• Biogas and Agricultural Integration (Finland): Fabian Sander concluded the presentations with a case study of a VPP and battery storage system integrated into a Finnish biogas plant and dairy farm. This session demonstrated how agricultural energy production can be stabilised and synchronised with wider energy networks.

Webinar Recording

The full recording of the session, including the question-and-answer segments, is available below for review: