IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2021 - 53

and able to join European-level balancing energy exchange
markets, i.e., the Manually Activated Reserves Initiative
(MARI) and the Platform for the International Coordination of Automated Frequency Restoration and Stable System Operation (PICASSO). It is expected that the technical
prerequisites for joining the MARI and PICASSO platforms
will be fulfilled by early 2023, allowing the Nordic manual
frequency-restoration reserve market to join the MARI during the second half of 2023. This will provide several new
business opportunities for flexibility providers in the Nordic
area. In parallel, several Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and blockchain platforms, e.g., " Flex Platform, " are
developing in Denmark, intending to precisely model the
flexibility of each demand-side asset, unlock its flexibility,
bring it to the existing and upcoming markets, and offer various types of flexibility services on an aggregated asset level.
The island of Bornholm has been used in several of the
projects as a field testbed (Figure 5). Bornholm is a Danish island that has been a European frontrunner in the green
transition. The population of the 588-km2 island is approximately 40,000, and the electricity and district heating generation on the island is based on 100% renewable sources from
wind, sun, and biomass. The island acts as a laboratory for
the testing of new energy technologies, electricity markets,
and operational concepts.
One of these projects is the real-life demonstration of
the Across Continents Electric Vehicle Services project that
investigates the technoeconomic system benefits of largescale EV integration in Bornholm, augmented by real usage

patterns, grid data, and field testing for transcontinental
replicability. A core part of the research activity focuses
on how EVs with commercial bidirectional chargers can be
used to provide frequency support to the system. Twenty-one
vehicles used by the municipality of Bornholm, paired with
21 10-kW bidirectional chargers operated by a commercial
aggregator, are offering frequency containment reserve for
normal operation by bidding in the Danish ancillary services market. Vehicles are driven every day for their normal
use but can still provide frequency reserves for more than
14 h/day.
Figure 6 presents a sample of the aggregated response
from the vehicles following a certain frequency profile.
The average latency between requested and provided
power is around 6 s, and the charger-vehicle pairs are
capable of following the desired set point. However, the
effect of such latencies on power system stability should
be carefully investigated and potentially update the service specifications for ancillary services provided by
demand response. It also emphasizes the necessity of
enhancing the performance of flexible demand-side units
and their control infrastructure. In most cases, commercial chargers are not designed for offering fast-frequency
control. Their capabilities may need to be adjusted and
the monitoring and control infrastructure further developed under the system operator's requirements, especially given the progressive reduction of system inertia
that may require very small delays in the provision of
frequency reserves.

figure 5. The living lab of Bornholm island, Denmark. This figure is a snapshot, showing the instantaneous level of total
wind, solar, and biomass-based productions, total demand, and import/export level at 10:21 a.m. on 7 December 2020.
(Source: PowerLabDK, https://bornholm.powerlab.dk/; used with permission.)
march/april 2021

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https://bornholm.powerlab.dk/

IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2021

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