The National Electricity System is undergoing a profound change due to the strong increase in distributed
generation plants by renewable sources and the gradual decommissioning of the rotating conventional
generation plants. In the near future, this new setup will require a system management exploiting new
resources in order to ensure adequate levels of system security and stability.
Among these resources, energy storage systems (ESSs) will play a significant role. ESSs can achieve
very high performance in terms of response speed and power modulation in proportion to the variation of the
network frequency. The impact will be more incisive when an aggregate and coordinated management of
distributed ESSs as Virtual Storage is implemented. In this perspective, the virtual ESSs represent an
important resource for the national electricity system, with the aim of providing synthetic inertia (very intense response lasting a few seconds) and Fast Reserve (delivery time up to fractions of an hour), representing
frequency variation regulation services, as well as peak shaving and load leveling operating modes, for the
reduction of power peaks and leveling of the load curve.
The need for some of these services, in particular the Fast Reserve, has led European TSOs, including
TERNA, to promote pilot projects. To date, the storage technologies available on the market, in particular the
electrochemical ESSs, are interfaced with the network through converters and control and management
systems that are not easy to integrate and coordinate with each other.
To implement a Virtual Storage it is therefore necessary to equip the individual ESS with appropriate
hardware and software interface devices that allow an aggregate and coordinated management of ESSs
distributed in the network.
In this context, the ViStoFaRe proposal aims to model, design and build a conversion device with the related
control strategies for interfacing an ESS, generally coupled to a renewable source plant, to the grid, as well as
a software platform for interfacing with the network operator and the coordination of n ESSs, managed as a
Virtual Storage.
These aggregate devices must be able to provide synthetic inertia and fast reserve services, i.e. support for
the safety and stability of the electricity system in the event of disturbances, such as sudden changes in the
load and/or generation and in addition secondary services such as peak shaving and load leveling.
Then, the main strength of ViStoFaRe is to create a conversion device, called StorInplus, which can operate
in a Virtual Storage perspective, through a management platform, called ViSto platform, which will be
designed and implemented, both to provide services to the network, normally reserved for large
programmable generation plants, and to meet the basic needs of users/producers.
The ViSto platform and the StorInPlus device will be validated through a demonstrator system.
The main ViStoFaRe results are:

• control and management algorithms for the StorInPlus device for the implementation of synthetic inertia and
  fast reserve services and their coordination with the peak shaving and/or load leveling services required by
  the ViSto platform;
• the ViSto platform for the management as Virtual Storage of n SdA, interfaced by StorInPlus, able to
  provide the aforementioned services at the aggregate level;
• two StorInplus prototypes for the control and management of a single ESS, which implements the algorithms
  mentioned in the first point;
• experimental demonstrator for the validation of the ViStoFaRe results and for their dissemination and
  dissemination.