FLEXI-GRID will demonstrate cutting-edge technologies and innovative flexible markets enabled by advanced cross-platforms for local energy exchanges and providing flexibility to distribution system operators in order to ensure a secure, stable and affordable operations of electrical distribution grids for de-carbonising energy systems with high shares of renewables (up to and beyond 100%). By leveraging digital, smart grid technologies, IoT, blockchain, FLEXI-GRID will provide a transparent data management platform by broadcasting real-time information on the conditions of the network to optimise the observability of the grid and market functioning. The project’s geographical coverage, with four test sites in Bulgaria, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey, allows validating solutions in multiple market conditions, and ensures post project scalability, knowledge transfer, scaling and replication. The key demonstration activities include i) grid monitoring, control and flexibility intervention; ii) local energy exchanges and provision of grid services; iii) blockchain based energy exchange and provision of grid services; iv) flexibility measures and grid services provided by local energy storage, Power to Gas, Vehicle to Grid, and local renewable resources. It is the first time that small and medium size DSOs show interest to test innovative tools and solutions. The project is strengthened by collaborating with Canada and backed by financial institutions to ensure successful commercial paths of innovative solutions.

5G is envisioned to be the first global technology standard that will address the variety of future use cases of the energy sector, by ensuring that both the radio and core network performance requirements can be met in terms of end-to-end latency, reliability and availability. Up-to-now, the main discussion for 5G has been to support the next wave of smart grid features and efficiency at the behind-the-meter level, by integrating many low-voltage devices into the power grid through low-cost connections, managing demand and load balance domestically, aiming the reduction of the electricity peaks and energy costs. However, it is expected that, as the emergence of smart grids will grow, a lion share of the growth will take place in the medium-voltage levels: towards secondary substations and distributed energy resources, as well as between secondary substations and primary substation. Smart5Grid aims to revolutionise the Energy Vertical industry through the successful establishment of four fundamental functions of modern smart grids, i.e., (i) automatic power distribution grid fault detection, (ii) remote inspection of automatically delimited working areas at distribution level, (iii) millisecond level precise distribution generation control, and (iv) real-time wide area monitoring in a creative cross-border scenario, thus assisting power grid operators and other energy stakeholders (e.g., smart grid operators, distribution system operators/transmission system operators, energy service providers, etc.) Not only this. Smart5Grid introduces an open 5G experimental facility, supporting integration, testing and validation of existing and new 5G services and NetApps from third parties (i.e., SMEs, developers, engineers, etc., that do not belong in the consortium) since underpinning experimentation with a fully softwarised 5G platform for the energy vertical industry is one of the key targets of the proposal. Moreover, in order to supply start-ups and newcomers with the opportunity to accelerate their growth in the high impact industry of the energy vertical, Smart5Grid provides an open access NetApp repository, provisioning support and assistance to third parties through a clear and trustworthy experimentation roadmap.

The journey towards tangible sustainability outcomes necessitates a fusion of technological advancements with strategic experimentation. In this pursuit, 6G-VERSUS emerges as a pioneering initiative, leveraging cutting-edge 6G research facilities across Europe to explore the frontiers of sustainable technology. Through meticulously designed trials and pilots, 6G-VERSUS addresses pressing challenges in 5 environmentally conscious vertical industries. In this regard, 6G-VERSUS introduces a novel methodology, transforming existing use cases into 6G applications, comprising Vertical App (V-App), Network App (N-App), and AI-assisted App (AI-App). This triadic structure optimizes the data and control planes of 6G systems, facilitating seamless information flow and decision-making processes. With the support of six (Stream C) 6G platforms spanning across Europe, 6G-VERSUS aims to demonstrate the profound sustainable, economic and societal impact of 6G technology, propelling towards a more sustainable and prosperous society.

The current international situation makes the process of energy transition more critical for Europe than ever before. It is a key requirement to increase the penetration of renewables while aiming at making the infrastructure more resilient and cost-effective. In this context, digital twins (DT) build a key asset to facilitate all aspects of business and operational coordination for system operators and market parties. It is of fundamental importance to now start a process of agreement at European level so not to develop isolated instances but a federated ecosystem of DT solutions. Each operator should be able to make its own implementation decisions while preserving and supporting interoperability and exchange with the remaining ecosystem. Exactly this is the vision of the TwinEU consortium: enabling new technologies to foster an advanced concept of DT while determining the conditions for interoperability, data and model exchanges through standard interfaces and open APIs to external actors. The envisioned DT will build the kernel of European data exchange supported by interfaces to the Energy Data Space under development. Advanced modeling supported by AI tools and able to exploit High Performance Computing infrastructure will deliver an unprecedented capability to observe, test and activate a pan-European digital replica of the European energy infrastructure. In this process, reaching consensus is crucial: the consortium therefore gathers an unprecedented number of actors committed to achieving this common goal. The concepts developed by TwinEU span over 15 different European countries with a continuous coverage of the continental map. Demos will encompass key players at every level from transmission to distribution and market operators, while also testing the coordinated cross-area data exchange. The consortium also includes relevant industry players, research institutions and associations with a clear record in developing innovative solutions for Europe.