ALEXANDER academic event - July 2, 2025

The ALEXANDER academic event will be organized in the framework of the SMACCS Summerschool. This will take place in Mons from June 30 till July 4. The ALEXANDER academic event will take place on July 2.

Are you doing research on low voltage flexibility? Are you interested in finding out the latest academic research in the field? Interested in knowing the incentives for people to decide to install solar panels or to use smart chargers for an electric vehicle? Or interested in knowing more about non-rational behaviour of people in energy questions?

Then our academic event is definitely something for you, check the programme below and inscribe.

10-12h:

• “ALEXANDER – Accelerating Flexibility from the Low Voltage Grid: From Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs” – Helena Gerard (VITO/EnergyVille)
• “The effectiveness of future financial benefits on PV adoption—Evidence from Belgium” - Justus Böning (KU Leuven/EnergyVille)
• “System-wide benefits of temporal alignment of wholesale–retail electricity prices” – Yucun Lu (KU Leuven/EnergyVille)
• “Driver Preferences for Investment in Flexible Electric Vehicle Charging” - Brian Fowler (UA/Uhasselt)

12-13h: lunch with networking

13-14.30h:

• “Operating envelopes for the grid-constrained use of distributed flexibility in balancing markets” – Wicak Ananduta (VITO/EnergyVille)
• “Consumer preference for low voltage flexibility in adequacy modelling” – Tars Verschelde (KU Leuven/EnergyVille)
• Presentation to be defined

14.30h-14.45h: break

14.45h-16.00h

• “An Innovative Framework for Heterogeneous Energy Communities Providing Baseline Flexibility Services in Distribution Networks” - Jamal Faraji (Umons)
• “Price-Based Demand Response Participation in Implicit Balancing Services: A Value-Oriented Inverse Optimization Framework” – Behzad Vatandoust (Umons)
• Closing remarks

The event is free after registration via this link.

Please register before June 23.

The ALEXANDER project is coordinated by the research centre VITO and 5 Belgian universities (Hasselt University, KU Leuven, Université Libre de Bruxelles, University of Antwerp, University of Mons) as partners. More than 6 PhD students were involved in the work on LV flexibility and resulted in numerous publications among which 7 scientific papers. And more is yet to come, please check our publications.

The ALEXANDER project aims to remove barriers that could block the full potential of the use of flexibility available in the low voltage (LV) network for the provision of system services (both long-term, as important source to guarantee security of supply, and short-term, as provider for balancing services). Consequently, better model representation of heterogeneous behaviour of LV flexibility for security assessments and improved algorithms for operational inclusion of LV flexibility for procurement and activation of system services were developed. The developed innovations should allow for inclusion of the currently unused LV flexibility potential in an efficient way to deliver system services required in the near future.

The approach used in the ALEXANDER project is based on three pillars:

1. Consumers: analysis of consumer behaviour, including consumer preferences and bounded rationality.
2. Grid: identification of technical and operational barriers for the provision of system services from LV networks. Development of innovative solutions for active system management.
3. System:  Modeling and analysis of the impact on security of supply (innovative and consumer-centric adequacy assessment) and balancing (e.g. strategies for a system service provision by commercial parties), adopting a multi-stakeholder approach.

More information can be found on the ALEXANDER website.

The Summer School will be held at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Mons, rue de Houdain 9, B-7000 Mons, Belgium (Auditorium 12, first floor).

The building is at a 15min walk from the Mons train station. Free parking (without reservation) is possible at rue de l'Epargne 53 (15min walk). The closest paying parking is located at rue de la Halle, 5 (Parking de la Halle), 100m from the venue building.