FAN (Flexiblepower Alliance Network) and TNO have been working on Energy Flexibility Interfaces for many years. This resulted first in EFI, a communication protocol that enables end users to control various smart devices, such as heat pumps, EV chargers and solar panel inverters. EFI has evolved into the S2 standard, which is now promoted by the S2 consortium, and which is an official European standard: EN 50491-12-2. Please find more information on the S2 website.
The S2 standard is an open standard that enables smart devices to communicate with smart grids and vice versa. It will make it possible for us to make as much flexible energy available as possible. And this in turn helps the transition to a sustainable and affordable energy supply.
The participants in FAN have combined their knowledge and experience of flexible energy and used it to develop the S2 standard.
Basic principles of S2:
- Independence of equipment. S2 does not require any changes to the equipment's control mechanism or firmware.
- Convenience comes first. End users are our primary focus when it comes to the use of the S2 standard. S2 is based on, and respects, their energy needs.
- There is no need to implement any assumptions for flexible energy in device software, neither for the equipment nor for the manufacturer.
- Market participants such as aggregators do not require any specific knowledge of the equipment in question in order to be able to use the flexibility enabled by that device.
- S2 is independent of Smart Grid technology
More information?
Please find more information on the S2 website, with links to Github, the S2 consortium and much more.
