Digital solutions for a more flexible, efficient and sustainable energy system
The energy transition requires new and better ways of managing, consuming and producing energy. Energy systems now have to deal with issues such as high data volumes from smart meters, higher loads from electric vehicles, and bidirectional energy flows from the grid to the consumer and vice versa. All these put pressure on today’s grid operators and other sector stakeholders. To tackle these challenges, the OPENTUNITY(opens in new window) project is helping make Europe’s distribution grids smarter, more flexible and better connected, while putting end users at the centre of the energy transition. Since its launch in 2023, it has focused on how technologies such as AI, data spaces, flexibility management and advanced grid monitoring can help energy actors to operate increasingly complex networks, make better use of existing infrastructure and integrate new energy resources.
Solutions for all energy actors
The project team counts 12 innovations across four complementary areas(opens in new window). OPENGRID, targeting distribution and transmission system operators (DSOs and TSOs), involves digital technologies that improve grid observability, planning and operation. OPENFLEX offers energy service companies, DSOs, aggregators and prosumers a solution for identifying, managing and activating flexibility from distributed energy resources and prosumers. In OPENSPACE, DSOs, TSOs, aggregators and original equipment manufacturers can make use of an open, secure and trusted platform for data exchange between energy assets and systems. Targeting actors such as IT developers, research centres, DSOs, TSOs and prosumers, the final area, OPENABILITY, consists of tools and methods that facilitate interoperability and the integration of new technologies into existing grid management systems. Over the past year, the OPENTUNITY team took steps to test(opens in new window) its innovations in real distribution grids, households and energy markets across its four pilot sites in Greece, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland. Demonstrations included testing an autonomous local flexibility market in Switzerland, complete grid management on a Spanish distribution area with high shares of distributed solar panels, smart charging and flexibility-based network planning in Slovenia, and flexibility market coordination and transformer monitoring in Greece. Through these demonstrations, the project partners gained valuable insights into how these technologies perform in real-world conditions and what is needed for their wider adoption. Now that the demonstrations are over, the partners are analysing the data to determine the innovations’ future market transferability. The team plans to analyse the economic, environmental and social impacts of their tools. A key priority in this final phase is to turn the results from the demonstrations into clear evidence of the benefits that these solutions can bring to potential users and adopters. “For almost four years, our focus has been to utilise the most advanced technologies to support decarbonisation considering end users’ actual needs and the social welfare of EU communities,” states project lead Álvaro Nofuentes of ETRA Investigación y Desarrollo, the Spanish hi-tech research and development company coordinating OPENTUNITY. In the run up to its completion, OPENTUNITY (OPENing the electricity ecosystem to multiple actors in order to have a real decarbonization opporTUNITY) will focus on consolidating lessons learned, assessing conditions for wider deployment and preparing its innovations for the next steps beyond the project. If you are interested in having your EU-funded project featured as a ‘Project of the Month’, please send us an email to editorial@cordis.europa.eu and tell us why!
