ECUBE

Project full title: Sviluppo e Sperimentazione Pilota di un Sistema Scalabile per l’Ottimizzazione dei Consumi Energetici secondo Principi di Ecosostenibilità, Efficienza ed Efficacia

Work Programme: Progetto del Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico (MSE)

Coordinator: Telecom Italia (IT)

Consortium: Telecom Italia (IT), Edison (IT), Electrolux (IT), STMicroelectronics (IT), Telit (IT), EnergyTeam (IT), HSR Ospedale San Raffaele (IT), Neohm Componenti (IT), RPS Riello UPS(IT), Consorzio per la Ricerca nell’Automatica e nelle Telecomunicazioni – CRAT (IT), Università di Verona (IT), Nera (IT).

Duration: 36 months

Starting Date: April 2009

Expected Ending: March 2012

CRAT Key Persons:  
Scientific co-coordinators: Dr. Alessandro Di Giorgio, Prof. Roberto Cusani

Project Description: The aim of the E-Cube project is the creation of a system including components and scalable infrastructures enabling the control, optimization and dynamic management of energy consumption, both for residential and commercial/industrial facilities. The optimization efforts will be driven by energy efficient and effective policies, defined and exploited by the project. The full objective of the system is to rationalize power consumption, allowing energy saving simultaneously with perceived comfort increase, by balancing the user wellness and the environment advantages obtainable by applying the project outcomes.

The E-Cube project proposes to study, develop and implement innovative HW/SW technologies which enable the efficient management of energy in the components of the system. Special attention is given to the identification of architectures and solutions which ensure the identification and authentication of the user, by exploiting a service personalization which will take into account the requirements of both the user and overall community.

Besides the pure development aspects, the E-Cube project aims at creating a network involving all the relevant stakeholders related to the energy at national level. These include the producers and providers of energy, the components and system manufacturers, the service creation and provisioning companies, all glued through network infrastructure offered by a telecommunication operator. An organic approach to the energy management and efficiency issue has the potential to offer relevant solutions only if it is able to be understood and supported at every level, for this reason the E-Cube project aims also at analyzing the regulations not only at national level, but with an eye also to the way the same issues are faced worldwide, in order to harmonise the project objectives with the international trends. A further outcome of the project is the definition and application of policies and rules for the efficient energy management, to help firstly at the national level the creation of a common perception and practice, and subsequently a uniform approach to the implementation of the energy efficiency techniques, system and components.

E-Cube also intends to create specific synergies among management of energy sources: although the main scope of the project is centered around the electric energy, the same approach can easily be extended to other energy distribution networks in place for residential and industrial uses (gas, heating water, etc), thus improving the efficiency of overall energy consumption.

The project results can be beneficial for the whole national industrial sector as they can offer to international markets innovative solutions easily applicable in different business processes and technological and methodological environments.

The optimization of energy consumption has a strong positive impact at national level as it ensures both economical savings and environmental sustainability. The realization of the system proposed in the E-Cube project can provide a strong  incentive to process and product innovation, with a consistent economical and employment effect on the involved partners from the industrial point of view, thus providing them with the capabilities for a strategic positioning not only at national level but also at the international one.

CRAT Contribution: The main contribution of CRAT to E-Cube Project is the development of control strategies and rules that promote energy efficiency and maximisation in use of renewable generation (if present) while assuring economicity and user comfort.

The reference scenarios are the domestic, industrial and energy community ones, with particular attention to the investigation of control strategies that can offer Ancillary Services to Power Grid Operators, following the guideline of Smart Grids vision.