Project Goal
According to the common Balancing platforms accession roadmaps, Portugal is expected to join the MARI and PICASSO platforms in the second half of 2024, which required Portuguese TSO REN to implement significant changes to the local Balancing market to:
Unify the mFRR and aFRR products with those traded in common Balancing platforms.
Establish automatic communication with MARI and PICASSO.
Ensure the fall-back solution to support the local Balancing market in case of disconnection from MARI and PICASSO.
To achieve this, REN issued a tender to secure the relevant IT solution back in 2021. As a result of the tender, the consortium of Unicorn Systems, Axians, and Artelys was selected as the solution’s vendor. The project was named SIME – Sistema Informação Mercados de Energia.
Who is our customer
REN – Redes Energéticas Nacionais is a listed public limited company operating in two main business areas:
a) the transmission of extra high voltage electricity and overall technical management of the National Electricity System,
b) the high-pressure transport of natural gas, overall technical management of the National Natural Gas System, and the reception, storage, and regasification of LNG and underground natural gas storage.
It holds public service concessions for these activities. In 2017, REN acquired the second-largest natural gas distribution network in Portugal, REN Portgás, which focuses its activity on the development and exploitation of the natural gas distribution network in Portugal’s northern coastal region.
“We knew that Unicorn Systems would be a strong partner thanks to their experience implementing the Pan-European balancing platforms as well as market management solutions for many other transmission system operators.” Marta Araujo, Project Manager – REN
Damas MMS:E – Balancing
Damas MMS is Unicorn System’s main software product for the energy domain. It’s been developed continuously since 2000 and incorporates Unicorn’s best practices and experience. Since 2000, dozens of the largest solutions in the European energy domain have been successfully built on Damas.
What makes it different from other solutions is its state-of-the-art technology and architecture, complete with 10+ years of perspective.
Damas MMS:E Balancing – the newest Unicorn product, designed specifically to cover TSOs’ core business processes related to balancing the grid. It also comes equipped with pre-configured connectors to common European platforms (such as MARI, PICASSO, ACER, etc.) and allows easy integrations with local systems.
The main advantage of Damas MMS:E is its high flexibility, allowing for quick modular subset delivery, something necessary for REN. This especially includes balancing bids and demands, managing transmission capacity, activations, and unit parameters.
Technologies:
Microservice architecture
Decomposition to standalone sub-applications
All functionalities are available via the REST API
Fully hosted in Azure Cloud
HTML5, React, NodeJS, JAVA SE, PostgreSQL, Mongo DB
SIME Delivery
Each delivery of Damas MMS:E – Balancing consists of 3 main activities: Configuration, Customisation, and Integration into surrounding systems.
Configuration
The configurability of Damas MMS:E – Balancing is one of its features setting it apart from similar solutions. It allows the configuration of the balancing products list, its main parameters, as well as the process workflow and other characteristics of the balancing market. For this Portuguese case, however, configuration alone was not enough for the complete adaptation of Damas MMS:E – Balancing for the local market, and further customisation was required.
Customisation
Customising the SIME solution covered several of REN’s operational areas:
1. The specific algorithm for local mFRR market clearing. This algorithm was delivered by Unicorn’s long-term partner Artelys and inspired by a similar algorithm in the MARI platform.
2. Calculating the mFRR and aFRR demand based on the multiple inputs from the REN internal systems.
3. Automatically dispatched instructions must be generated based on the mFRR activations, taking into account the current market programme for each physical unit as well as the unit’s technical limitations.
4. Manually dispatched instructions may be issued by REN operators on demand.
5. The possibility to monitor the state of the electricity grid in real time to compare the mFRR and aFRR trading results with the actual electricity flow over the Portuguese border.
These features significantly increased the overall added values of the SIME solution for REN users.
Integrations
SIME is integrated with over ten surrounding systems using a full range of communication protocols offered by Enelane: web services, sFTP, REST, and IEC 60870-5-104. The integration required not only the mobilisation of Enelane’s full potential but also the introduction of a few new features to the Enelane product, such as the option of providing a flexible proxy/non-proxy internet communication with market participants.
Results of the SIME Project
The project was finished successfully, achieving the planned go-live, both satisfying the customer and passing the necessary tests. At the moment, the solution is in live operation and provided to REN as an on-premise installation. The further development and delivery of improvements remain ongoing.
This delivery holds great significance for Unicorn as SIME is the first project delivered in Portugal.
