MAS2TERING

MAS2TERING was a three-year technology-driven and business-focused project (2014-2017), aimed at developing an innovative information and communication technology (ICT) platform for the monitoring and optimal management of local communities of prosumers. MAS2TERING combined an original business vision, with goals towards the enablement of local energy aggregation markets, utilizing a set of enabling technologies from the artificial intelligence, communications, and security domains. Last-mile connectivity solutions were combined with a distributed optimisation platform, and the security of communications enhanced, to enable effective and secured electricity management at distribution level and create new business opportunities. Doing so, the project enabled new collaboration opportunities between grid operators and telecom and energy companies, both from technology and business perspectives.

Recent communications from the European Commission (EC) have called for a redesign of the energy markets (COM340) to take advantage of system-wide flexibilities and a New Deal for EU energy consumers (COM339) that empower choice and participation in the smart grid.  In MAS2TERING, home area network ICT technologies were developed that connect consumers and prosumers to the grid and then apply multi-agent system optimization techniques with the objective to lower consumer energy bills and facilitate DSO capacity management – and this has benefits on the grid at large. In November 2016 the EC published the “Winter Package” and the guidance contained is being integrated into the final results of MAS2TERING.