Advanced TSO control rooms to enhance grid observability, stability and resilience

This Destination includes activities targeting a sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply. In line with the scope of cluster 5, this includes activities in the areas of renewable energy; energy system, grids and storage; as well as Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS).

This Destination contributes directly to the Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations ‘Green transition’, ‘Digital transition’ and ‘A more resilient, competitive, inclusive and democratic Europe’.

In line with the Strategic Plan, the overall expected impact of this Destination is to contribute to the ‘Ensuring more sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply through solutions for smart energy systems based on renewable energy solutions’.

This destination contributes to the activities of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) and its implementation working groups.

The main impacts to be generated by topics under this Destination are:

Renewable energy

1. Energy producers have access to efficient and competitive European renewable energy and renewable fuel technologies with a solid knowledge base and are able to deploy them to enhance the EU’s energy security and reach its climate neutrality objectives, in a sustainable way in environmental (e.g., biodiversity, multiple uses of land and water, natural resources, pollution) and socioeconomic terms, and in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
2. Technology providers have access to European, competitive, resilient, reliable, sustainable, and affordable value chains of renewable energy and renewable fuel technologies including emerging ones, and with strong export potential to supply both the EU internal and global markets. They benefit also from circular renewable energy technologies that are safe and sustainable by design with reduced and diversified external dependence on critical raw materials^[1].
3. Economic sectors benefit from better integration of renewable energy and renewable fuel-based solutions that are, among others, competitive, cost-effective, efficient, flexible, reliable, and sustainable. Such integration is facilitated through digitalisation and integration of artificial intelligence of renewable energy technologies that provide network stability and reliability.
4. European industries benefit from a reinforced export potential of renewable energy and renewable fuel technologies, also through international partnerships, and become more competitive in innovative renewable energy technologies in Europe and globally.
5. European researchers benefit from a stronger community and from a reinforced scientific basis on renewable energy and renewable fuel technologies including emerging ones, also through international collaborations.
6. European citizens have access to an energy market that is fair and equitable, more resilient, uses all different types of local renewable energy resources, and is less dependent on fossil fuels imports. Citizens experience less fuel and energy poverty, and also benefit from new employment and upskilling opportunities. Local communities benefit from a more decentralized, affordable, and secure energy system and from multiple uses of land and water.

Energy systems, grids and storage

1. R&I actions will support the just digital and green transformation of the energy system through advanced solutions for accelerating the energy systems integration and decarbonisation. The developed clean, sustainable solutions will contribute to making the energy system work better for actors and supply more reliable, resilient and secure energy – even under increasingly more frequent extreme climate events.
2. The solutions developed will contribute to increase flexibility and grid hosting capacity for renewables through optimizing cross sector integration and grid scale storage as well as cover off-grid situations. They will improve the preparedness of the electricity system to support the EU's binding target for 2030 of minimum of 42.5% renewables in the gross final energy consumption (with the aspiration to reach 45%), and full decarbonisation by 2050. They will enable further electrification of demand and will enhance the competitiveness of the European value chain, reduce pressure on resources (also by making technologies ‘circular by design’) and decrease dependencies. Such solutions would also enable a better EU resilience to climate risks.
3. The solutions will improve consumer awareness and engagement in the energy transition, via innovative offers and services (e.g. demand response, energy communities) and will target different types of consumers, including “hard to reach” population groups (such as energy poor or low-income households). This will result in increased trust in, and uptake of the new products and services entering the energy system.

Carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR)

1. Accelerated deployment of carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) as a CO2 emission mitigation option in electricity generation and/or in industry applications, as well as carbon dioxide removal for negative emissions.

Legal entities established in China are not eligible to participate in both Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) and Innovation Actions (IAs) falling under this destination. For additional information please see “Restrictions on the participation of legal entities established in China” found in General Annex B of the General Annexes.

[1] For an example of a methodology for the assessment of sustainability, circularity and contribution to EU resilience and technological autonomy of clean energy technology in the R&I pipeline, please see Study on circular approaches for a sustainable and affordable clean energy transition

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:

• Enhanced reliability, resilience, and efficiency of electricity transmission grids. Grid congestion is managed efficiently;
• Enhanced observability of grids and improved forecasting of supply, demand, grid capacity availability, and flexibility;
• Transmission system operators (TSO) leverage modern digital solutions and employ improved systems to effectively manage their grids and improve interoperability with other TSOs;
• Vendor-agnostic reference architectures, solutions and tools are developed to help advancing the TSO control room design and operation.

Scope:

Projects are expected to address all the following items:

• Design and test innovative solutions, technologies and processes for advancing the way the TSO control rooms are designed and operated, increasing observability and entailing enhanced support for the operators, providing more automation and enhanced support for decision, faster response times and less room for error. The solutions are expected to incorporate both hardware and software aspects;
• Analyse and include, as far as possible, solutions for Wide Area Monitoring Systems (WAMS) to extend the real-time monitoring and control capabilities over large areas, while coping with the decentralisation and increased complexity of the system;
• The novel solutions are expected to help the operators to manage better grid congestion and incorporate more renewables while reducing curtailment. The solutions will facilitate data-driven grid operations, capitalising on real-time analytics and data from smart assets. The solutions may include preparation, recovery and/or restoration from incidents (including extreme weather events);
• Help the grid operators to update their operational tools in light of the deep transformation of the grids, notably the distributed nature of generation. May include the option to de-centralise the control for increasing the resilience of decision-making;
• Advance forecasting solutions for energy supply, demand and flexibility made available to the system operator, need for ancillary services, as well as for grid hosting capacity; provide advanced analytics and visualisations;
• Develop interoperability between the control rooms of different TSOs (and using different vendor solutions) to secure seamless data exchanges and coordination. Develop interoperability between the TSO control rooms and other entities connected to the transmission grids, including the adjacent DSOs.
• Leverage modern solutions, notably digital twins and artificial intelligence. Use security-by-design and advanced protection mechanisms against cyber threats. Use and/or develop, to the greatest extent possible, open-source software solutions and or software modules;
• Develop a manual and propose best practices on this matter to be used by other TSOs (including operation instructions). Identify remaining gaps and further needs for research and development.

The demonstration, test and validation of the activities should be carried out in at least two pilots in different EU Member States or Associated Countries.

Projects are expected to include at least two electricity Transmission System Operators (TSOs) and at least two universities and/or research organisations.

Additionally, collaboration is encouraged with the following entities and projects:

• at least one supplier of technology and solutions for TSO control rooms;
• at least two distribution system operators, which manage grids that are connected to the grids operated by any of the TSOs that are partners in the project;
• (at least) one project funded under the separate call ‘Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADSM) for more efficient and flexible distribution grids’ with the view to strengthen TSO-DSO coordination and support interoperable solutions. To that end, the project proposals are expected to describe a credible mechanism to do so.

This collaboration (minimum number of entities) is sought per project in total and does not necessarily apply per each pilot in particular.

Selected projects are expected to contribute to the BRIDGE initiative^[1] and actively participate in its activities.

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[1] https://bridge-smart-grid-storage-systems-digital-projects.ec.europa.eu/