The EU Project Zone Podcast: Project MERLON with Antonis Papanikolaou

MERLON is a Horizon 2020 project that focuses on local energy management and optimization in presence of high shares of volatile distributed renewable energy sources. That includes generation, flexibility, RES integration, as well as the introduction of novel business models that will allow local energy communities to introduce themselves in the local flexibility markets. 

“The main dilemma in the sector at the moment, also given the context of these days, the price spikes and so on, is how do we protect consumers against all these risks of energy cost,” says Antonis Papanikolaou, the guest of this episode of The EU Project Zone Podcast.

Papanikolaou is the Project Coordinator of MERLON and also the Head of R&D at Hypertech Energy Labs, working on solutions related to smart grids, energy efficiency, demand side management, building smartification including the interactions between buildings and utility networks.

MERLON may focus on energy communities, but it is not only about that. At the same time, the project assists the local DSOs by providing them with the tools for the provision of added value services to the overlay distribution grid.

Moreover, Antonis touches upon the effectiveness of price signals and how it can be guaranteed “in order to steer the demand side to become more flexible and more adaptable to generation basically” he says.

Regarding the regulatory authorities, Antonis believes that their focus is to protect the people, by hiding sometimes the problem. But although the cause is good, the means do not seem to always justify it. That is because “it's completely against an increased awareness of the people, on learning what is the energy transition, how it affects their life, how it affects climate change, urbanization, and so on”.

Plus, “at the end of the day, at least my assumption is that we want to involve people in this process. And involvement starts from awareness and understanding, and then evolves into, for example, a more active participation”.

As for the entire premise of the MERLON project? That is according to Antonis “to try to localize the problem, contain it and solve it at the level of a distribution, where the renewable assets are also connected. And, really try to work locally, unconnected from the rest of the grid and try to locally resolve any problem that may arise locally, before it becomes a problem for the rest of the system”.

Listen to the full discussion and find out also how MERLON assists the local DSOs by providing them with the tools for the provision of added value services to the overlay distribution grid.