The ETIP SNET and BRIDGE showcased at ENLIT Europe 2022 in Frankfurt

The ETIP SNET and Bridge played a crucial role in the organisation of the EU Project Zone of ENLIT Europe 2022, the 3-day conference where energy professionals from around the world come together to collaborate and innovate. The event in which the two European Commission (EC)’s initiatives took part for the fifth time in a row was held this time in Frankfurt, Germany, from 28 to 30 November. It was widely attended, with more than 15,000 participants, 700 exhibitors, and 500 speakers.

The ETIP SNET and BRIDGE initiatives worked with ENLIT organisers to set up the EU Project Zone, a space to present the initiatives and the numerous EU-funded projects working on Smart Grid, Energy Storage, Islands, and Digitalisation Projects and contributing to the deployment of renewable sources of energy as well as the digitalisation of the energy system. Besides their contribution that brought together several energy-related projects – among which roughly 30 part of Bridge, the two initiatives had three corners of the EU Project Zone for, respectively, the ETIP SNET, new Bridge projects, and the ETIPs FORUM.

Like last year, the EU Project Zone hosted a series of talks and panel discussions organised by the ETIP SNET and BRIDGE secretariat with the participation of DG ENERGY, ETIP SNET working group chairs and experts, and BRIDGE working groups and projects who spoke on the following topics:

1 - Digitalisation of the energy system - a key challenge with a high impact on the entire energy value chain

In October 2022, the EC adopted the 'Digitalisating the energy system - EU action plan', aiming to contribute to the EU energy policy objectives by supporting the development of a sustainable, (cyber)secure, transparent and competitive market for digital energy services, ensuring data privacy and sovereignty, and supporting investment in digital energy infrastructure. The Action Plan was presented during the session by the EC, while ETIP SNET representatives contributed with a general view and position with respect to the Plan in the next future with a focus on how the ETIP SNET will go to face the raised challenges by the Action Plan – also presenting the TSO and DSO cooperation point of view. Finally, the EUniversal project presented its results.

The slides will soon be available on the ETIP SNET website.

2- The new SET PLAN: the connection with the ETIPs and IWGs

The European Commission launched the renewal process of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) -  which final version should be released in Q1 2023. While the SET Plan will continue providing a common vision, goals, and coordination for accelerating the development and deployment of efficient and cost-competitive low-carbon energy technologies across Europe, its objectives, governance, scope, and activities should be revised to fully fit the Green Deal and the REPowerEU objectives. The main driver of the process is to strengthen the alignment of high-level objectives: a) renewing policy aims and targets for the development of innovative clean energy solutions and preparing for their deployment and b) pooling national and European research & innovation resources. The role of the ETIPs in this process and their contribution to the work of the SET PLAN IWGs is crucial. To foster ETIPs' participation and role in achieving a series of ambitious climate targets, the ETIPs FORUM issued 8 recommendations on the Plan’s future content and governance. During this session, and in view of the upcoming renewal of the SET Plan, these key messages will be strengthened and further discussed.

3- How to react to the energy crisis – fostering R&I activities, scaling up innovative solutions, and ensuring their market uptake

See the BRIDGE Update section.

4 - Flexibility for Resilience - How can flexibility support power grids resilience?

By analysing power system-related challenges and solutions, the ETIP SNET and ISGAN ANNEX6 published in March 2022 the white paper “Flexibility for resilience How can flexibility support power grids resilience?”, which provides a consolidated view and input for R&D activities and innovation projects on power system flexibility and resilience. More specifically, the publication analyses how to design and exploit flexibility sources and mechanisms for increasing overall system resilience. This includes technology, market and regulatory aspects of transmission and distribution systems, as well as the coupled energy sectors. The panel discussion focused on these topics, while the project iFLEX presented some key results also used in the Paper nourishing the panel discussion.

The slides will soon be available on the ETIP SNET website.

5 - Smart charging: a win-win solution, not a Trade-Off

Electrification is increasingly becoming an essential driver in many transport areas. The ETIP SNET will present the outcomes of the recently published white paper “E-mobility deployment and impact on grids”, which addresses the grid impact that electric vehicles can have in electricity networks through their charging process and, therefore, it is mainly focused on those aspects which are foreseen as being more impactful:

• Sector: Road transport.
• Vehicles: Light Commercial and Heavy-Duty vehicles.
• Technology: Battery-propelled vehicles.
• Charging infrastructure: Conductive, stationary charging systems.

The projects XFlex, INTERCONNECT, REDREAM presented some key results and nourished the panel discussion around Smart charging as a win-win solution, not a Trade-Off.

6 – Regional Workshop

See section below.

ETIP SNET 15th Regional Workshop

The ETIP SNET Regional Workshops aim to identify unsolved R&I topics and monitor the implementation of research and innovation (R&I) activities at national and regional levels within the EU, ensuring consistency between national and European views and stimulating knowledge-sharing between stakeholders and among Member States and associated countries.

The main goal of the 15th ETIP SNET Regional Workshop was to learn more about national and regional R&I priorities within the EU Member States (MSs) and to what extent they are aligned with the R&I priorities at the EU level. National and Regional projects and funding programmes from South-Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Romania and Slovenia) - addressing energy system integration issues - have been presented.

A specific exercise was done to map the R&I priorities at national and regional levels and align them with the 9 High Level Use Cases (HLUCs) introduced in the ETIP SNET R&I Implementation Plan 2021-2025, and that will be part of the upcoming ETIP SNET Roadmap 2022-2031.

Key conclusions and recommendations of this event will be released soon on the ETIP SNET website and will serve as a base for further analysis and discussion with policymakers at European, national and regional levels.

The ETIP SNET attended the 16th SET Plan conference, “Towards a new Strategic Energy Technology Plan” within the framework of the ETIPs FORUM

The ETIP SNET has attended, within the framework of the ETIPs FORUM, the 16^th SET Plan conference, “Towards a new Strategic Energy Technology Plan”, hosted on 9-10 November in Prague, Czech Republic. Over the last year, the EC has gathered opinions and ideas from the entire SET Plan Community to review the objectives, governance, scope, and activities of the Plan. The conference explored the transformational pathways to sustainable, secure, resilient and competitive energy systems and value chains. It also raised awareness among all its stakeholders on the latest R&I in the field of carbon-neutral energy technologies.

The ETIPs FORUM was created in June 2021 – thanks to the key contribution of the ETIP SNET - to develop a stable and structured dialogue among the 10 ETIPs and assimilated entities to avoid duplications and to share the know-how and expertise of the numerous experts involved in all the ETIPs towards the same decarbonisation goal and mission by 2030 and 2050.  

Ahead of the SET Plan's revision, the ETIPs FORUM drafted 8 recommendations and a policy paper to inform the EC and other stakeholders involved in the process about the ETIPs' common position regarding the SET Plan implementation and recommend possible pathways for a more efficient and inclusive execution of the planned actions. These recommendations have been submitted to the public consultation the EC opened concerning the SET Plan revision and were brought to the SET Plan Conference.

The ETIP SNET and ETIP-RHC published the joint White Paper “Coupling of Heating/Cooling and Electricity Sectors in a Renewable Energy-Driven Europe”

This White Paper, a joint work by ETIP-SNET and ETIP-RHC, focuses on the implications of coupling the electricity, heating and cooling vectors as a vital part of efficiently decarbonising the whole European energy sector. It proposes a way towards efficient decarbonisation in terms of both energy efficiency and infrastructure optimisation aligned with the goals of the “Fit-for-55” package and the REPowerEU plan. To succeed within the challenging timeframe the EU has set, different renewable energy technologies for electricity as well as for heating and cooling should have been verified at least on a pilot scale and need to be further developed and up-scaled. In many cases, they could be coupled to increase energy efficiency. In addition, this White Paper elaborates on promising, often decentralised generation side as well as demand side technologies and solutions. The key role of energy storage as a sector coupling enabler in the decarbonisation strategy is highlighted.

The energy transition towards renewable heating and cooling requires extensions of technical, legal and economic skills. EU-wide coordination efforts need to be intensified more to ensure the education and training of a sufficient number of designers, planners and installers of new technologies.

The paper “The interaction of electromobility with the power grids” by ETIP SNET experts published on ELECTRA

The paper “The interaction of electromobility with the power grids”, written by ETIP SNET experts, Antonio Iliceto, Santiago Gallego, Joao Abel Peças Lopes, Luis Lopez, Ning Zhang, Nikos Hatziargyriou, has been published on ELECTRA, CIGRE’s digital magazine. The publication summarises the views of 5 distinguished experts that were presented at the Special Panel Session entitled "The interaction of electromobility with the power grids", organized by ETIP SNET at the CIGRE Paris Session in Paris on 2^nd  September 2022.

WG Updates

WG1:  The White Paper on “E-mobility deployment and impact on grids” is published and can be found here.

The Flexibility for Resilience White paper is published and available.

The Hydrogen and Grids Task Force is continuing its drafting work and aims to achieve their first draft before the end of the year.

The TF on Energy Communities’ Impact on Grids in cooperation with ISGAN has significantly advanced with respect to the drafting of the deliverable and is expected to advance to the validation stage.

WG2: There has been some delay in the activities of the WG2 product of unforeseen circumstances in the Chair Team. In terms of ongoing activities, TF KPI on Energy Storage Applications paper has been sent to storage-oriented Policy Officers from DG ENER in an effort to obtain initial feedback. Once this feedback is incorporated, the paper shall be submitted to the ETIP SNET Governing Board. Furthermore, the WG2 has mapped the activities of its next TF; Development of Circular Economy Approach to Energy Storage Value Chains and expects to kick off this TF in December.

WG3’s white paper “Coupling of Heat/Cooling and Electricity Sectors in a Renewable Energy Driven Europe” has been published. A webinar will soon be organised to present the paper.

The WG3 is also finalising the "New Electricity Market Design" position paper. It should be ready for publication by the beginning of 2023. WG3 is also working on a "Hydrogen Ramp-up" position paper. 

WG4:

TF 1 Digitalisation Action Plan: The TF continues to work on the position paper on the Digitalization of Energy Action Plan. The paper is based on the 5 Digitalisation Action Plan pillars. TF1 will focus on Use Cases as concrete examples of what is currently working on in digitalisation. Additionally, the HLUCs will be reviewed from the perspective of the DAP.  

TF3 Consumers and Citizens Involvement: Task Force 3 is continuing its work on the Playbook on Consumers and Citizens at the Centre of the energy transition.

WG5:

WG5 is working on its restructuring with 5 newly created TFs, while leveraging on the knowledge previously created in the WTs. The members of the newly created TFs will respectively support WG1, WG3 or WG4 to detect and assess maturity level of relevant national and/or European founded projects’ outcomes in the field of WGs’ interest. WG5 assessment will be a complementary part of other WGs’ work. Currently, meetings are being scheduled between the WG5 TFs and other ETIP SNET WGs.