The Clean Energy Package aims to transit towards cleaner energy in the European Union and requires market reforms towards small-scale flexibility provision and the creation of local flexibility markets. However, the progress in many Member States is slow. While several Member States have initiated a reform of their existing energy market structures, only few have started the creation of local flexibility markets. This paper provides an overview of emerging flexibility markets in the EU. This paper also provides an analysis of important elements of local flexibility markets based on literature review and assessments made in the Horizon 2020 project X-FLEX. Seven key characteristics of local flexibility markets have been retained from this literature review. Small-scale flexibility is still a relatively new concept, and a lot of barriers prevent it to enter the markets. Two main types of gaps were identified: (i) marketrelated gaps, such as aggregation rules that are not open enough, and (ii) operational gaps, such as the need for the large-scale smart metering infrastructure rollout and a large amount of data streams. The operation of local flexibility markets should depend on the network conditions they are applied to, as the conditions are different from one network to another. For this reason, the need for local flexibility markets has to be assessed depending on the problems the network is currently facing or will be facing in the future due to foreseen increased amount of distributed generation sources and electrified demand. A detailed analysis in terms of flexibility provision for the four demonstration sites in three European Member States participating in the X-FLEX project is presented in this paper, along with recommendations and activities for local flexibility market development performed in these demonstration sites.

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Energy communities play a vital role in energy transition as nations strive to reach climate goals and integrate renewable energy into the energy mix. The factors that influence the self-sufficiency of energy communities are battery storage, weather variables, i.e., global horizontal irradiance, cloud cover, etc., and scenarios regarding the size of the energy community were analyzed in the COMPILE project using the energy community of Luče, Slovenia as a case study. These factors were quantified using the key performance indicators of selfsufficiency level and self-consumption level. It was found that battery storage of the individual buildings did not improve their energy self-sufficiency whereas buildings without batteries had self-sufficiency levels 11.8% greater than or equal to the buildings with batteries on average. Global horizontal irradiance and temperature were found to have a greater impact on selfsufficiency than rain and cloud cover, and high consumption buildings decreased the self-sufficiency level by up to 43%.

The growing fleet of electric vehicles (EVs) in the low-voltage (LV) networks is an essential concern for the Distribution System Operator as it represents a significant increase in consumption thus potentially leading to costly grid expansions to prevent congestion. However, grid expansion can be postponed or even avoided if 'smart' solutions like load shifting are put in place. In this paper, we propose a methodology which simulates the EV daily trip-and charging profile with the consequent power flows in the electrical network. The smart-charging algorithm enables shifting the EV charging load in case of detected congestion. The algorithm is tested in an LV grid of a mountainous region in Slovenia. The algorithm is run for a typical week, with a 15-min resolution, with a Monte Carlo simulation performed to study the worstcase scenario. Finally, we analyse the results on the robustness of the grid and the benefits of the studied smart-charging algorithm.

Distribution System Operators (DSOs) are more and more in need of flexibility services due to variable distributed generation, particularly photovoltaics (PV), and increased electricity demand coming from electric vehicles and heat pumps connected to the low voltage (LV) network. This growth of the electricity demand as well as unforeseen bidirectional power flow pose a great risk of congestion in the LV network. However, the distributed generation and storage devices can also serve as a flexibility source. Market-based solutions like local flexibility markets (LFMs) are encouraged by the European Commission to help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and help DSOs minimize or defer their investments in network reinforcement. In the project X-FLEX, a hybrid market platform is being developed to allow aggregators provision of flexibility services to DSOs in the event of anticipated or detected congestion. An important question for DSOs and flexibility providers is the value of these flexibility services and how to justify the investment in this solution rather than the traditional methods of grid reinforcements. This paper presents a method for assessing the value of flexibility services to the DSO from two perspectives, technical and economical. This paper also describes the simulation models used to perform the value analysis. This method was elaborated within the context of the X-FLEX project, thus taking into account the regulatory framework of two pilot countries: Greece and Slovenia.