Challenges in a new energy landscape
Surplus solar generation, unpredictable EV charging, and flexible loads such as heat pumps put significant stress on the grid. Conventional responses – infrastructure reinforcements, PV connection limits, or tariff adjustments – are costly, slow, and ultimately insufficient. What today’s grid needs is real-time flexibility and intelligent management.
Grid flexibility – the new operating principle
Flexibility is the ability to adapt energy consumption or production, so the grid remains within safe limits. Grid visibility and orchestration of distributed resources – including batteries, PV systems, EVs, and heat pumps – allows utilities to prevent overloads, reduce congestion, and make full use of existing infrastructure. This shift enables renewable integration without sacrificing stability.
From monitoring to flexibility
Modern grid management works on two levels:
- TSO level: balancing generation and consumption across the national grid, forecasting renewable production, and managing flexibility reserves.
- DSO level: ensuring local grid intelligence by monitoring voltage, frequency, and power quality in real time and protecting electricity distribution infrastructure.
Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is central here. By combining near real-time data with EDGE intelligence, smart meters do more than measure – they actively help manage. They monitor feeder loads, send capacity signals, and even prioritize or control smart loads when needed. This transforms data into immediate action.
Smarter grid protection
Grid management is evolving into a two-tier approach:
- Predictive prevention (day-ahead planning): using forecasting and EDGE intelligence for expected demand, generation, and flexibility reserves to calculate the best way to use solar, EVs, batteries, and other devices so the grid stays stable.
- Real-time protection: using algorithms and EDGE intelligence to react instantly to overloads, voltage spikes, or congestion by setting safe operating limits for devices like PVs, EVs, and batteries.
This integrated model ensures that the grid is both efficient and resilient, reducing unplanned outages, extending asset lifetimes, and enabling participation in flexibility markets.
Benefits for utilities
- Prevents overloads, voltage fluctuations by real-time grid monitoring & management
- Relieves congestion by dynamically adopting to actual grid conditions
- Improves utilization of existing infrastructure.
- Moderates costly grid upgrades by finding enough flexibility in the grid
- Absorbs and stabilizes solar exports.
- Supports integration of renewables (EV, PV, and battery) at scale.
By combining precise LV network grid monitoring with EDGE intelligence, flexible grid management becomes a driver of stability, efficiency, and innovation.
Quick expert view | Tomaž Dostal, Head of Innovation, Iskraemeco
What makes modern grid management different from traditional approaches?
Traditional grids relied on static capacity and heavy reinforcement to deal with new demand. Modern grid management uses flexibility, predictive analytics, and smart metering to orchestrate resources dynamically. This ensures stability without excessive investment. Our solution Flexium combines precise LV network monitoring with EDGE intelligence, making Iskraemeco a driving force of grid flexibility, grid stability, and driving force for energy transition.
How does EDGE intelligence contribute to grid protection?
Meters with EDGE intelligence turn data into immediate action. Smart meters can monitor feeder loads, detect stress points, calculate import and export power limitations and even control connected devices. This EDGE intelligence ensures local problems are addressed instantly, while cloud analytics optimize the system as a whole.
How does improved grid management benefit consumers?
For consumers, it means fewer outages, better quality of supply, avoid PV installation rejections and the chance to benefit financially through flexibility participation. It gives households transparency and control, while also supporting a faster, more reliable integration of renewables.
