The installation of Italian nanogrid pilot is approaching to its commissioning, as the last designed equipment has been purchased and installed.

The Italian pilot involves a public building of the University of Cagliari campus, sited in the suburbs of the city of Monserrato. It is a medium size building (around 5000 m²) that includes a public academic library, classrooms, offices, and small laboratories. The weather station was the first equipment installed, in October 2020, collecting meteorological data (global solar irradiation, air temperature and humidity, and wind speed). It was followed by the power monitoring system, in March 2021, allowing the energy audit of the building. Both these metering systems are equipped with dedicated dataloggers, permitting a remote observation and collection of the measured data. In August 2021, an Energy Storage System (ESS) of 30 kW and 71 kWh was temporarily installed in the university laboratory for a testing phase. Now it has been moved to its final location, the buried secondary substation that supplies the involved campus building. At the end of July 2022, the remaining equipment has been installed: a 40 kWp photovoltaic (PV) plant on the rooftop of the building, and a building automation system for the automatic management of lighting in the library, reading rooms, stairs, and corridors.

The whole system works autonomously but it can be observed and managed remotely through a platform linked to the Energy Management System (EMS) of the ESS, that communicates directly or through the local ethernet network with the PV inverters, the Building Automation System, the weather station, and the power monitoring system.  The last works to the electrical installation plant are planned for the beginning of September to make the nanogrid pilot fully operative.

The main goal for the building pilot sites is to create a demonstrative installation (and living lab) of a nanogrid for existing buildings to show the feasibility of a greener, ecologically sustainable and economically profitable future scenario. In particular, the nanogrid will reduce the building energy consumption, for minimising the electricity bill, and providing flexibility services if required. By evaluating the meteorological information, the energy consumption and the PV energy production, the EMS of the nanogrid will handle the controllable loads and the Battery Energy Storage System in order to maximise self-consumption and minimise the CO2 building production.