Our Initiative

A Transnational Joint Programming Platform to Initiate Co-Creation and Promote Energy System Innovation

• ERA-Net SES Focus Initiative Smart Grids Plus (SG+) wants to further the development and integration of smart grids system-technologies, stakeholder adoption and market processes to help Europe make progress towards achieving its short-term 2020, medium-term 2035 and long-term 2050 energy targets. It promotes applied research, piloting and demonstration in the field of smart grids, with a focus on validation, scaling-up and replication. SG+ projects integrate the three layers "technology”, "marketplace” and "adoption”, aiming for solutions meeting medium technology readiness levels (TRL 5-6 to TRL 6-7).
• ERA-Net SES Focus Initiative Integrated Regional Energy Systems (RegSys) combines technologies, market related solutions and means of stakeholder involvement in order to develop solutions that make it possible to efficiently provide, host and utilise high shares of renewables, up to and beyond 100% in the local or regional supply by 2030. Funded projects shall enable the participation of intra-regional systems in the inter-regional exchange of energy as well as in sharing responsibility to maintain the overall system performance. RegSys broadens the scope from electricity to smart energy systems, encompassing smart energy system integration, innovation ecosystem integration and cross sectoral integration. It aims to prepare or implement demonstration projects (TRL 6-7) that show potential for follow-up projects with market uptake measures (TRL 8-9) as well as, in selected areas, for concepts and technologies of TRL level 3-6  that show potential to become best practice by 2030.
• ERA-Net SES Focus Initiative EnerDigit intends to help unleashing the potential of digitalisation for the energy transition towards a decarbonised, secure and resilient European energy system. It deals with digitalisation of energy systems and networks in designing, implementing and testing of interoperable technical and business ser-vices for energy systems. Beyond the funding of transnational RDD projects, it accelerates the development of transnational innovation ecosystems by maintaining a Transnational Validation Ecosystem of existing and upcom-ing living labs, allowing start-ups and innovative companies to test their solutions in different environments. Its Associated Partner Network with Digital Platform Providers enhances access for RDI projects to existing Data, Software, Service and Business platforms, providing development ecosystems for smart services that make it pos-sible to reach critical mass and create marketable solutions. EnerDigit also promotes the development of interoperable solutions enabling wider impact and use of applications, systems and services, by initiating a European Collaboration Platform for Interoperability Testing.

A Knowledge Community to Organise the Learning Back and Forth from the Local and Regional Level up to the European and International Knowledge Base

• the horizontal learning among demonstration and RDD projects on the regional/national and transnational Level

• the vertical learning between these projects, the related funding programs and the international knowledge base, as provided by the European SET-Plan Initiatives, the European Smart Grids Task Force Working Groups, the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), the International Smart Grids Action Network (ISGAN), the Mission Innovation Network and others. 

• providing information on programming, demonstration and implementation activities on a national and regional level
• exchanging information and knowledge with the expert Working Groups of ETIP SNET
• reflecting and commenting on, from a national stakeholders' perspective, the outcomes of the expert Working Groups of ETIP SNET
• providing a platform to team up with partners and experts from a national level that are ready to contribute to the ETIP SNET activities, working groups and projects
• ensuring coordination with the SET-Plan Working Group on Action 4.

Knowledge Sharing on Different Levels within ERA-Net SES

ERA-Net SES aims at joint programming far beyond the organisation of joint calls for projects, only, by sharing and transferring knowledge, contributing to speed up the development, preparing implementation, scaling up and replication und improving the European and international knowledge base. In order to provide benefit to the European and international community, ERA-Net SES intends to participate in the Horizon 2020 open data pilot and follow the overarching EU innovation policy goals as far as possible. However, some of the transnational RDI projects will either be using open source code in their deliverables or contribute their deliverables to the open source communities. Alternatively, some of the partners may be contribute to standards, open or otherwise. In other cases, consortium partners will have to protect their IPR and products.

Therefore ERA-Net SES has developed a basic concept and principles of sharing knowledge in different levels:

 

General principles and underlying basic concept for data management and knowledge sharing in ERA-Net Smart Grids Plus

The diagram describes:

• on the left hand side knowledge, information and data elements, 
• in the middle left, blue pyramid the high-level processes which lead to the different types of data, information and knowledge, 
• in the middle right, green pyramid the stakeholders involved in the process and to the right the three levels (EU, programme, project) on which the various stakeholders act. 
• in the right hand column, the level of confidentiality which is captured/exchanged on the individual levels (green: public; yellow: medium; red: high).