IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - 24

table 1. The main characteristics of the Italian pilot projects.
Feature

A2A (1)

ASM Terni

A2A (2)

ACEA

ENEL

DEVAL

A.S.SE.M.

Bidirectional communication

DG monitoring and real-time
data provision to SO

Active demand

Advanced restoration

Storage
EV charging infrastructure

Demand response

to DSOs, including defining the future roles of consumers
and new players. These initial steps, however, are vital in a
process likely to take a few years.

Making it Smarter: The Italian
Road Map Toward Smart Grids
The Italian Context
Enel Distribuzione is the largest operator, with 86% of the
total volume, followed by A2A Reti Elettriche (4%), Acea
Distribuzione (3.4%), and Aem Torino Distribuzione (1.3%).
The other operators (seven of whom are comparatively large)
hold marginal quotas. In 2014, electricity demand in Italy was
above 315 TWh, 85% was covered by national production,
while imports accounted for the rest. Out of these 315 TWh,
116.6 TWh were produced by renewables, which recorded a 9%
increase with respect to 2009. A remarkable growth was registered in wind production (+29.1%), biomass/waste (+21.6%)
and PVs (almost 1,600 GWh, compared to 677 GWh in 2009).
This terrific growth of energy from renewables was made
possible by the connection of more than 18 GW of smallto-medium power generators, mostly PVs, scattered across
MV and LV networks. Today, renewables can feed more
than 30% of demand in South Italy (summer) and account
for more than 11% of power production on average.
The Italian SO has recently acknowledged that the issues
related to high penetrations of renewable distributed generation cannot be regarded as just a distribution network problem.
Indeed, high penetrations of DG can expose the whole power
system to serious challenges: from system adequacy and
security, to ensuring appropriate amounts of reserves, to the
risk of losing a significant amounts of DG due to overly sensitive loss-of-mains protections stipulated by DNOs to avoid
unintentional islanding. Despite the significant improvements
achieved so far, the discussion about the needs of a smart grid
is still open. Clear actions from AEEGSI are on the way to
incentivize innovation on large scale.

Smart Grid Pilot Projects
Several smart grid and smart city projects have been completed or are on track for completion in Italy. Among these
24

ieee power & energy magazine

projects, seven pilot projects are particular noteworthy as
they have been used by AEEGSI to set up the regulatory
framework for promoting investments for smart grids.
Table 1 presents each of the Italian DNOs involved and
the main features of the projects, which are tested on real
networks and involve actual customers. AEEGSI directly
financed the projects using the tariff paid by all system
users by adopting an input-based incentive (in the form of
an increase in the weighted average cost of capital).
Despite the fact that the smart grid pilot projects were subjected to an input-based regulation mechanisms, the opportunity and the need to promote the smart grid characterized
by large-scale, fully interoperable, and replicable solutions
with an output-based regulation is clear. Indeed, the maturity reached by available technologies and solutions has led
AEEGSI, through the directive 646/2015/R/el, to propose the
use of smart grid performance metrics based on cost-benefit
analysis. The ex-post analysis of the seven pilot projects is
briefly summarized in Table 2. The functions can be grouped
in three main clusters: monitoring, control, and protection.
Monitoring, Control, and Protection

From the monitoring perspective, AEEGSI identified four
levels of observability, ranked according to complexity, cost
and benefits (Table 3).
The benefits of these functionalities are
✔ the reduction of the need for balancing and ancillary
services for the sake of tertiary regulation thanks to a
better observability/foreseeability of DG
✔ the reduction of renewable energy curtailment due to
critical balancing problems
✔ the efficient management of critical congestions by
reducing the curtailment time of DG
✔ the enhancement of planning and operation of distribution networks.
In terms of distribution network control, the analysis of
the projects identified different levels of implementation
for voltage regulation with increasing complexity for both
technical and regulatory aspects. These options, each with
different communication needs, include the use of OLTCs at
primary substations by using the information from secondary
september/october 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016