The project will provide a set of solutions and technologies to increase the smartness, stability and security of an open, consumer-centric European energy grid. The project will combine an enhanced use of storage technologies, a highly increased share of RES and the integration of charging infrastructure to favour the large-scale deployment of electric vehicles.

The UPGRID project included 4 demonstrators that are being deployed from April 2015 to June 2017 at Bilbao area in the North of Spain, Parque das Nações in Lisbon (Portugal), Åmål in Dalsland in the South of Sweden, and Gdynia in Pomeranian Region (Poland).

STORY wants to demonstrate and evaluate innovative approaches for energy storage systems. The challenge is to find solutions, which are affordable, secure and ensure an increased percentage of self-supply. The project consists of eight different demonstration cases each with different local / small-scale storage concepts and technologies, covering industrial and residential environments. These demonstrations feed into a large-scale impact assessment, with the central question being: “What could be the added value of storage in the distribution grid?”

The project explores whether the existing telecommunication infrastructure is sufficient to support in mass scale the emerging business models and Smart Grid services. Also, the project supports standardization activities by proposing adaptation to data models of market-oriented and field-level standards. SmarterEMC2 the project includes 3 real-world pilots and 3 large-scale lab simulations.

The overall objective of Project Sensible is to develop, demonstrate and evaluate a storage-enabled sustainable energy supply for buildings and communities. The project will work towards achieving the 2030 target set by the European Union, namely to reduce green house gas emissions by 40% and create a sustainable energy supply. A wide range of partners will work together to demonstrate that EU 2030 targets can be met on a local level, through intelligent integration of existing small-scale technologies with local power system grids.

RealValue project commenced in June 2015 and is a €15.5m European energy storage project funded by Horizon 2020, the largest Research and Innovation Programme in Europe (€12M funding from the EC). The duration of the Project is 36 months. RealValue aims to demonstrate how local small-scale energy storage, optimised with advanced ICT, could bring benefits to market participants throughout EU. Smart Electric Thermal Storage (SETS) will be deployed in physical demonstration trials in 1250 homes in Germany, Latvia and Ireland but the analysis will also consider other storage technologies and energy vectors, including integration with district heating and micro-generation.

P2P-SmartTest project investigates and demonstrates a smarter electricity distribution system integrated with advanced ICT, regional markets and innovative business models. It will employ Peer-to-Peer (P2P) approaches to ensure the integration of demand side flexibility and the optimum operation of DER and other resources within the network while maintaining second-to-second power balance and the quality and security of the supply.

The project offered innovative solutions for all the actors of the Smart grid, to create more secure and stable Smart Grids and cleaner and affordable energy. In addition, to make possible an efficient implementation of these solutions, the project will work on the analysis of new business models, as well as improvements in legislation and regulation in the field of Smart Grids.

MIGRATE stands for Massive InteGRATion of power Electronic devices. The aim of MIGRATE is to find solutions for the technological challenges the grid is currently and especially in future faced with, in particular with the increasing share of renewable energy which is integrated into the grid. The project will try to develop new approaches, paving the way for the implementation of power electronic devices in large scale. European TSOs, manufactures and universities/research centers have joined the consortium in order to investigate such challenges. MIGRATE’s aim is to provide requirements for future measures, methods and tools for a secure operation of the upcoming converter dominated power system in order to avoid potential coming blackouts.

The project aims to combine already existing technologies into a new framework. At the core is a cloud-based flexibility management system integrated with electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries empowering energy storage to increase the share of renewables in the smart grid. Additionally, smart control of domestic appliances will aid in load-balancing over the course of a day.