The AHEAD (AI-informed Holistic Electric Vehicles Integration Approaches for Distribution Grids) project will create a simulation environment capable of predicting the most convenient location to place the electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and optimise both the usage of the power grid resources, and the charging stations located in urban and rural areas. This simulation environment will exploit the unique features of currently available AI models and include two layers: the spatial mapping one (placing the chargers where the people need them to be), and the power grid one (placing the chargers where the grid can support them). Innovative smart charging algorithms will be designed and tested in the model, to minimise the impact of EV charging pools on the network, and ensure the consumers have economic benefits. Moreover, these smart charging algorithms will be tested in three demonstration sites, dedicated to assessing the technical and economic feasibility of smart charging light and heavy-duty EVs, and boats. To this end, AHEAD gathered relevant partners from all the EV value-chain: technology providers who want to test their equipment in the real world, grid operators, who want to optimise the usage of the grid resources and mitigate the EV charging impact, and research institutions, who aim at advancing the knowledge on the topic and producing value for society. Particular attention is going to be placed on the user experience and cybersecurity part of the demonstrators, with specific partners who focus their efforts on understanding how to minimize the impact of smart charging on the user experience and on creating a model to represent cyber-attacks on the chargers to suggest efficient defensive mechanisms for system protection.

Europe’s electricity sector is experiencing severe transformations: modernization of the electricity system is vital for achieving Europe’s energy targets, and smart grids and flexible electricity systems are essential for this modernization. On this respect, the SMILE project will demonstrate different innovative technological and non-technological solutions in large-scale smart grid demonstration projects in the Orkneys, Samsø and Madeira islands, paving the way for their introduction in the market in the near future. The technological solutions vary from: integration of battery technology, power to heat, power to fuel, pumped hydro, electric vehicles, electricity stored on board of boats, an aggregator approach to demand side management (DSM) and predictive algorithms. The pilots will demonstrate operation of the distribution grid under stable and secure conditions to implement solutions for demand response, intelligent control and automation of distribution networks; they have high shares of RES in the electricity grid or have planned increasing shares in the next years. All of them will demonstrate stable grid operation with use of storage solutions and smart integration of grid users from transport. Each pilot will test the most appropriate solutions for local specificities, and common lessons with cross-cutting valence will be derived. Involving projects on islands will ease engaging residents in SMILE. Indeed, islanders are usually sensible to provide availability to test solutions impacting their daily life. Finally, two of the pilots are not total energy islands, thus representing smart grids located on the mainland and not limiting replication potential to other island locations only. SMILE consortium is composed by 19 partners from 6 EU countries: all the value chain actors needed to efficiently implement the 3 projects have been involved and an innovation management approach will guarantee a wider exploitation and replication of technological solutions.

i-STENTORE will examine the integration of diverse storage solutions and their combinations. Innovative storage systems will be showcased and their co-operation with the integrated assets will be co-optimized, placing the reliability, the power quality, the cost-efficient operation and the maximization of the assets’ lifetime as end-goals. i-STENTORE will introduce an umbrella framework aiming to showcase stand-alone and hybrid storage solutions highlighting the multi-purpose use of storage, not only as an energy buffer, but also as an active grid component capable of providing services and contributing to grid resilience, stability and efficient operation. The proposed framework will examine the applicability of versatile storage solutions in various applications covering the mobility, agricultural, industry, household, heating and other sectors, and in different timeframes, creating what-if scenarios for the selection of the optimal storage solutions to serve each individual application in the most effective way, promoting purpose-specific Hybrid Energy Storage Systems (HESS). To achieve this and to ensure a seamless integration in a technology-agnostic and interoperable manner, i-STENTORE will design a Reference Architecture towards an open and flexible storage-enabling European energy system leveraging storage-induced flexibility and facilitating the increased integration of renewable energy sources (RES). i-STENTORE will embrace the introduction of novel business models, towards building positive and attractive business cases for storage, identifying new revenue streams for storage operators and promoting storage systems as a facilitator of the energy transition. This approach will develop and validate the enhanced connectivity of multiple systems at different levels of the energy value chain, incorporating both front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter solutions, targeting the essential empowerment of new actors and the strategic shift of the role of storage.

The aim of INSULAE is to foster the deployment of innovative solutions for the EU islands decarbonization by developing and demonstrating at three Lighthouse Islands (located in Croatia, in Denmark and in Portugal) a set of interventions linked to seven replicable use cases, whose results will validate an Investment Planning Tool that will be then demonstrated at four Follower Islands (located in Spain, in Germany, in The Netherlands Antilles and in Greece) for the development of four associated Action Plans. The chosen islands are complementary in many aspects: location, size, connection with the mainland, economic development, renewable share and carbon intensity. INSULAE contributes to the Clean Energy for EU Islands Initiative by providing an Investment Planning Tool (IPT) able to create Actions Plans for the islands to generate their own sustainable, low-cost energy. The interventions will prove the ability of the use cases to develop RES-based systems 40-70% cheaper than diesel generation, thus, enabling an average reduction of the fossil fuel consumption of 11% after a large deployment of the use cases in the INSULAE islands. The INSULAE IPT will support the decision maker on the selection and design of cost effective Action Plans looking for the island decarbonization. It will be mainly composed by two modules: the Island modeling assistant and the Scenarisation module. The project team is carefully balanced along all the value chain counting with five public authorities, six energy and water utilities, four technology providers, two energy software developers, six RTOs, one environment NGO, one business models expert, one engineering company and one entity for social aspects and replication. The legal and regulatory framework of 57% of the total population living in EU islands will be directly considered within the project.