Testing begins for the Dr BOB project

The DR-BOB (Demand Response in Blocks Of Buildings) European project concerns the regulation of the energy consumption of a group of buildings by their users. Three buildings on the Arkinova Technology Park make up the French pilot site and have entered their test phase.

This is a research and innovation project involving ten partners in five European countries: the UK, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania. Named DR-BOB, which stands for "Demand Response In Blocks Of Buildings", this project concerns energy management and consumption on the scale of a set of buildings. The idea is to study the validity of a model allowing for energy flexibility in a group of buildings (capacity for modulating the demand on the network based on a signal from the electrical network) on the European market. The NOBATEK/INEF4 technological resource centre based on the Arkinova Technology Park is the project lead for France.

"The aim is to respond to the constraints of the power network. This means that at peak times for electricity consumption, users will be able to reduce their consumption to avoid saturating the network. Another example concerns intermittent electricity production, such as with solar panels or wind turbines. When they are producing more than is needed by the network, the blocks of buildings could then increase their consumption to absorb the surplus production," sums up Igor Perevozchikov, project coordinator for the Arkinova pilot site.

There are plans to test the DR-BOB project on four pilot sites in the UK, Italy, Romania and in France with the Arkinova business generator, the offices of the NOBATEK/INEF4 technology resource centre and the building of the Fédération Compagnonnique des Métiers du Bâtiment. Using shared digital tools, these three buildings are going to try to regulate their energy consumption for a period of twelve months whilst maintaining comfortable working conditions.

A meeting was held at the Arkinova business generator on 30 November to inform the occupants of the three buildings about the project and launch the operational test phase. This started on 1 December and now the users of the buildings may receive alerts by e-mail inviting them to reduce their energy consumption and to track their consumption and the benefits generated on a dedicated website: http://france.dr-bob-portal.eu/publicportal