Why BCDC Energy?
Electricity based on renewable sources involves uncertainty due to weather changes, and variation in the supply of solar and wind power. So far, the issue has been addressed through the capacity market or demand response, but these two aspects have not been combined.
The BCDC Energy research project will create a cost-efficient combination of the capacity market and demand response. This requires a market-oriented place of business built on a cloud service platform.
Cloud services enable extensive energy production that is varying and decentralised
The interdisciplinary BCDC Energy research project will create a research-based practical implementation for utilising decentralised energy production in an efficient way.
The goal of the project is to find solutions for using varying, renewable sources of energy as extensively and cost-efficiently as possible. The project will find out how this goal can be achieved through a combination of economical market mechanisms and next-generation ICT and digital services, and weather forecasts of a new kind.
Based on a cloud service, the project will develop a digital place of business for the exchange of decentralised energy production. The utilisation of the results will be promoted through an interactive approach based on information management research.
The goal of this interaction is to form an active community where researchers and other community members will deepen and share their knowledge and understanding of the opportunities provided by decentralised energy production.
In practice, the results of the BCDC Energy research can, for example, enable consumer electricity sales in the future. An example of this could be to give flexibility to household electricity consumption according to the weather. Energy consumption by heating and household appliances react to “energy weather”, i.e. wind and sunshine.
BCDC Research
WP 1: New market mechanisms for system-level integration of extensive energy production that is varying and decentralised. Oulu Business School at the University of Oulu, Department of Economics; Finnish Environment Institute; VATT Institute for Economic Research
WP 2: Cloud services enabling intelligent ICT automation in decentralised energy solutions. University of Oulu, Centre for Wireless Communications CWC
WP 3: Local short-distance weather forecasts enable a decentralised energy solution. Finnish Meteorological Institute
WP 4: Digital systems and services in the implementation of a varying, decentralised energy system. University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science
WP 5: Knowledge management and interaction in the BCDC Energy research project. University of Oulu, Department of Information and Communication Studies
Strategic Research Council
The BCDC Energy research project is funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. Project funding has been granted for 2015–2017, and – based on an intermediate assessment – for the period of 2018–2020. The mission of the council is to grant funding to long-term, programme-based research that seeks solutions to address key challenges in Finnish society.
BCDC Energy cooperates with other projects funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. The cooperation includes:
Smart Energy Transition – SET consortium
- included in the Disruptive Technologies and Changing Institutions programme
- outlines the sectors and methods of how Finland can be successful in the global energy transition
- included in the following programme: A Climate-Neutral and Resource-Scarce Finland
- investigates what a resource-efficient electricity system is, how it is implemented, what policy issues its implementation involves, and how they are ultimately resolved
“In the complex world of today, different phenomena and social challenges require research that takes an interdisciplinary, solution-oriented approach to cross administrative and sector boundaries and to combine the competences of different sectors in a new way.”
-The Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland
Involved in BCDC Energy
Strategic partners
The Carbon Neutral Municipality Forum
Finnish Clean Energy Association
Other partners
The Energy Authority
Ii Municipality
Motiva Oy
Active interaction: BCDC Energy communicates together
BCDC Blog & News: BCDC Energy researchers write a blog post (fi/eng) monthly on their team’s Blog & Tweet turn about current research topics. Members of BCDC Advisory Board and Strategic partners write as blog visitors. In addition, BCDC Energy reported the latest project news, such as published research articles, important events and collaboration.
@bcdcenergia Twitter: Researchers and BCDC communications are actively tweet (fi/eng/ger) about the project research, and follow, share and comment on the current energy sector discussions.