SMART is a Living Lab (LL) designed to act as a user-centric open innovation ecosystem, attached to the value potential of new markets. The facilities of University of Western Macedonia and distributed residential prosumers within the district of Central and Western Macedonia in Greece compose the real testing environment. The aim of SMART LL is to rebalance the public action in a logic of considering the generality of citizens’ concern through the active participation of users. The different climate conditions (high altitude, seaside) and geographical particularities (lignite power stations, high RES penetration) of the established users allows a wide range of real-life testing including actors with little economic weight. The highly educated team of SMART LL, consisting of Professors, post-doc researchers, PhD candidates and engineers, constantly try to create strong ties between the academia and the local business infrastructure with a special focus on Small Medium Enterprises. SMART LL is based on the pillars of research, education and industrial testing. Through the educational dimension, the students can have access to records and assets of actual users. The research interests include smart grids, ancillary services to grid operators, demand side management techniques, photovoltaics and energy storage systems operation optimization.
SMART LL can serve as a place for testing new commercial measurement devices, PV panels, energy storage systems (e.g., batteries), energy management systems, different communication protocols and technologies related to power electronics converters. The existing infrastructure is expandable and adaptable for allowing different structures to be tested, maximizing its impact on the testing facilities. The fact that the whole belongs to the University of Western Macedonia can facilitate issues related to data protection due to transparency issues. Moreover, the cooperation of the University of Western Macedonia with the local municipality, the local Distribution System Operator and local energy suppliers can maximize the impact by applying a wide range of applications, even more innovative ones.