PEGASUS - Promoting Effective Generation And Sustainable UseS of electricity Highlights

Promoting microgrids in rural and island areas

The PEGASUS project aims to promote microgrids in rural or island areas. The objective of the project is to study the technical, administrative and economic conditions for the development of electrical microgrids. Based on monitoring of pilot sites, different economic models will be evaluated. In addition, tools and methods will be implemented to facilitate the replication of new microgrids.

A favourable regulatory environment

The concept of collective self-consumption was introduced into French law in 2017. In rural areas, many territories have significant renewable energy resources and the development of collective self-consumption operations could meet multiple challenges:

  • Reduction of the cost related to network infrastructure
  • Reduction of electrical distribution losses
  • Reduction of the electricity bill
  • One-off reliability of supply
Saint-Julien-en-Quint

 

The village of Saint-Julien-en-Quint (Drôme, Vercors Regional Nature Park) is the pilot site studied as part of the PEGASUS project. Most of the buildings connected to the IV/LV switchyards of the village, with about forty customers, were instrumented in order to collect the load curves during one year.

This instrumentation was carried out by a company named OMEGAWATT. Depending on local configurations, either the meters or the electrical panels have been equipped. The data collected is used to model the network and carry out a technical and economic study of a collective self-consumption scheme in the village centre. This study is carried out by the NOVENER firm.

Locally, the project is supported by the municipal association (ACOPREV), which aims to use this study as a basis for a project in collective self-consumption, but also to go further on hydrogen storage and mobility (see the ACOPREV website).

Instrumentation of a pilot territory and scenario study

The project had several phases:

  • Selection of a pilot territory through a call for expressions of interest
  • Instrumentation of the pilot territory for one year (reporting of power data at a time step of 10 minutes)
  • Technical study of different scenarios of local self-consumption with or without control and/or storage
  • Economic study of the collective self-consumption project
  • Assessment of reproducibility conditions
  • Communication and spin-off actions

 

[Updated: July 2019]