"There is a clear trend towards an increase in the number of distributed energy sources being integrated into the electric energy infrastructure. Power grids, in their current form, will soon be unable to cope with the increased use of renewables. As such, intelligent power networks are required to cope with this challenge while still managing both the complexity and scale. For the future, better coordination and optimization between generators and consumers is essential in order to secure both the power supply and quality. Based on these necessary and expected developments, it is envisioned that a complex system of ""smart grids"" will evolve to integrate numerous and sophisticated automation and information technologies as a solution to the enormous challenges that the energy supply is facing. Until now, research has largely focused on developing individual and stand-alone aspects of smart grids, while holistic evaluation was often out of reach due to the lack of suitable research infrastructures. Therefore, 18 European research institutions have teamed up together in the trans-national ERIGrid project in order to tackle this problem. ERIGrid provides a single point of access to integrated smart grid research infrastructures addressing the following key objectives:
• To integrate major European research centres with outstanding smart grid research infrastructures for the joint development of common methods, concepts, and procedures.
• To integrate and enhance the necessary research services for analysing, validating, and testing smart grid configurations.
• To support the technology development as well as the roll-out of smart grid approaches and solutions in Europe that are based on a holistic, cyber-physical systems approach.
• To provide system-level support and education for industrial and academic researchers in the area of smart grids.
The ERIGrid holistic validation approach has been broadly used for different project-internal validation activities, by several user groups to prepare and document the testing and validation work in the used laboratories but also in a couple of other national and European projects. Overall, it was highlighted by all the users of the holistic validation approach how the methodology promotes clarity and order when planning the experiments and helps also in the standardization of procedures between different laboratories, fostering the collaboration possibilities between different facilities. However, it turned out that there is complexity of the process and difficulty in understanding the involved concepts and definitions. The main steps in the future development of the approach must be oriented to enhance the clarity of the concepts and to simplify the templates and documentation. Furthermore, an adoption of the validation approach to cover broader power and energy systems topics is also a future necessity to cope with future needs."
