SynGRID project aims to enhance institutional and regional innovation in Widening countries through the capitalisation of outcomes from completed Horizon 2020 and ongoing Horizon Europe projects. The combination of valorisation of research results with the focus on enhancing the management, observability and controllability of low-voltage grids considering the increased integration of Renewable Energy Sources, will be combined with the transparent sharing of the know-how to foster stronger collaborations between renowned research and innovation institutions and HE beneficiaries in Croatia, Greece and Slovenia. The outcome of the international collaboration will be materialised in a joint ERDF, HE and LIFE project proposals that will aim to bridge the gap between European and regional funding mechanisms. To unlock the full potential of R&I actors, the SynGRID project will employ a multi-faceted capacity-building strategy supported by a comprehensive analysis, encompassing a review of validated research outcomes from Horizon projects and an assessment of the current technology landscape in Croatia, Greece, and Slovenia to identify areas requiring intervention. SynGRID will engage key stakeholders including DSOs, regional authorities, SMEs in the energy sector, and research institutions. The backbone of knowledge sharing is structured around key projects like H2020 – COMPILE and X-FLEX, as well as HE – STREAM and OPENTUNITY, where partners served as coordinators or technical coordinators offering advanced insights into the topic of optimised grid reinforcement and advanced controllability to enable large share of RES in the existing, congested DSO grid together with algorithms for fair sharing of limited capacity.

With the technological development and the increasing integration of RES, storage of various energy vectors supported by new organisational measures and business models is used to foster the development of local energy systems and to boost the use of local energy sources. COMPILE project aims to activate and use Local Energy Systems in order to support the fast growth of energy production from RES in constrained networks, and foster the transition from centralized system with passive users into a flexible network of active users featuring energy communities. This transformation aims to enhance RES integration and increase the security of supply, without traditional network reinforcement. COMPILE is uniting the efforts of DSOs, market actors and the communities of active consumers, since increasing decentralization needs more consumer engagement and participation. The project aims to better understand the way emerging decentralized solutions and the existing centralized infrastructure operate together in an economically efficient way. In COMPILE, we focus on showing the benefit of cooperation through energy communities that will solve current grid problems in a coordinated way, avoiding the costly network reinforcement while leading to an increased RES share. The demo cases in COMPILE are positioned along the spectrum of this passive-/active consumer transition and will show different approaches to coordination of consumers, technology and business models. The demos will have different “starting point”: different countries, different technology, organizational levels, community sizes, composition (industry/houses/retail), and regulatory perspective. All COMPILE demos feature a high replicability potential. Our vision is an interplay of flexible energy community-supported networks with current centralized system, increasing societal benefit with optimized planning. This leads to a more economical use of resources, help local businesses and decarbonise local areas.

The X-FLEX project proposes a set of integrated solutions that will facilitate the optimum combination of decentralised flexibility assets, of both on the generation (DER) and on the demand side (V2G, power-to-heat/cold, batteries, demand response) enabling all parties, including final prosumers, to offer their flexibility in the local and wholesale market creating benefits to all the actors in the smart grid value chain. This flexibility will make it possible to maintain a stable and secure electricity system with a growing role of variable renewable generation, yet resilient to extreme climate events. Up to now, the projects and research activities in this area have been focused mainly on specific energy sources and actors, considering only a very limited and isolated part of the distribution network, leaving aside all the opportunities existing throughout the flexibility offered by the energy value chain. In this context, X-FLEX will propose a new concept that will integrate and create synergies among all energy flexibility sources and technologies, promoting cooperation of all the actors of the smart grid and energy market, in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Through this holistic approach, X-FLEX aims to create the optimal combination of decentralised flexibility assets located along the whole energy value chain and new market mechanisms, providing benefits to all the actors of the smart grid and energy market, offering an all-win scenario. These X-FLEX project solutions will be tested in real conditions in 4 pilot sites in 3 EU Member states (Bulgaria, Slovenia and Greece), with different needs and socioeconomic and technological boundaries, involving multiple flexibility assets (batteries, power to heat/cold, vehicle to grid and other storage solutions) and all complementary actors of the energy network (DSO, TSO, microgrid operator, utilities, flexibility providers, local communities).

SEEDS unites a multidisciplinary and complementary team of SMEs, LEs, RTOs, and stakeholders that constitute the whole (local) value chain of energy efficiency in buildings and thermal demand electrification, from planning, design, and construction to operation and commissioning. SEEDS is built upon the consortium's vast experience in developing, testing, and valorizing decarbonization solutions, supervising real-life demonstrations of building renovation and smartification, and deploying energy flexibility. SEEDS demonstrate replicable heat pump solutions integrated with renewable energy to decarbonize buildings' thermal demand. Addressing that every building is unique and requires tailored solutions to be cost-efficient and energy efficient, we develop scalable and generic design and operational optimization methodologies, deploy multiple proven heat pump technologies at scale, and optimally integrate them into the building and broader energy system. SEEDS demonstrates these (up to TRL6-8) in 6 pilot sites (incl. 1 replication site), providing real-world settings spread across the different climate zones and European construction markets. SEEDS is centered around three key themes: cost efficiency through optimization, system integration through holistic design and control, and replicability through configuration modularity and scalable building types. These are addressed in 7 focus areas: 1) Iterative design of the component and integrated system, 2) Secure and interoperable data platforms and IoT, 3) Integrated system optimization for energy efficiency and flexibility, 4) Deploying energy flexibility to enhance grid stability, 5) Replication strategies, exploitation, and business models, 6) Decision making support framework for replication, and 7) Dissemination, communication, and stakeholder outreach. Thanks to the 27 partners' wide-reached field of impact and networks, SEEDS is set out to boost the electrification of thermal demand in buildings.