The Inter-oPEn consortium established the organisational, scientific and training base needed for an openness driven, interoperable power electronics grid:
• Doctoral training: Four network wide modules and one workshop covered technical fundamentals, open source software, legal/regulatory issues and change management in critical infrastructure. The hybrid sessions attracted >50 participants; questionnaires and regular feedback meetings guided improvements, and one doctoral fellow completed their first academic secondment. Ten researchers now possess interdisciplinary knowledge and transferable skills that bridge engineering and law.
• Technical progress: PSCAD and EMT simulations together with global sensitivity analyses identified the control functions most affecting protection system design, particularly circulating current control. Building on this, a partitioning strategy separates “open” (shareable) from “proprietary” (protected) control blocks, and model exchange formats (CIM, FMU, DLL) are being evaluated for partially open HVDC converter models. A model based systems engineering framework for concept level protection design, a scalable MATLAB/Simulink test bed (point to point to four terminal HVDC), and early data driven control concepts (DeePC) for multi terminal grids constitute the first concrete technical building blocks for an open, interoperable power system.
• Legal & regulatory work: Two draft papers were produced: (1) interpreting “openness” under EU law for HVDC interoperability, and (2) assessing governance models (national vs. EU planning, new entities, private law cooperation frameworks) for multi vendor, multi terminal projects. The analyses flag IP, competition law and cybersecurity as main barriers and propose a regulated openness model that equips EU legislators to enable data exchange while preserving national flexibility.
• Outreach & dissemination: The Inter-oPEn website, a LinkedIn channel and two newsletters were launched. The Collaborative Open Source Library (COLib) was created and linked to the LF Energy PowSyBl ecosystem, ready to host the partially open models generated later. These activities raise project visibility and lay groundwork for community engagement.
• Overall impact: The consortium has built a solid governance framework, delivered interdisciplinary training, produced novel technical and legal solutions, and initiated coordinated outreach. One peer reviewed paper is published, with several manuscripts in preparation. The established management and dissemination structures position Inter-oPEn to move from methodology to demonstrators, influence future standards and foster market uptake in the next reporting period.
