INESC TEC projects distinguished at European level

The European project TWENTIES and the national project InovGrid (led by the EDP Distribution), which include the participation of INESC TEC’s Power Systems Unit (USE), were recently distinguished by the European Electricity Grid Initiative (EEGI).

The EEGI is one of the industrial initiatives under the European SET-Plan (Strategic Energy Technology Plan), which distinguished a total of four projects. The main criteria for EEGI to award projects take into account their alignment with the objectives set out in the EEGI’s roadmap for the 2010-18 horizon, as well as the implementation plan for the 2010-12 period, as well as their environmental impact, scalability and replicability.

To distinguish project TWENTIES, the EEGI took into consideration the fact that the solutions provided by the project improve the security of the pan-European transmission network, thus giving Europe the capacity to respond to the increasing share of renewables to be integrated in the energy matrix by 2020, particularly in relation to offshore wind farms. The demonstration project was also considered a determining factor to assess the impact resulting from the scalability and replicability of the solutions identified in the project.

For the InovGrid, the EEGI took into account the solution defined by the project to create and provide end customers with new solutions for remote management of energy, while giving access to new services. From an environmental point of view, the EEGI highlights the project’s concerns related to efficient energy management, as well as the integration of renewable microgeneration. They also highlighted the interoperability of solutions from multiple vendors, the development of social studies and the quantification of the project's impact on customers. Note that InovGrid was also selected by the EUROLETRIC – Electricity for Europe  to provide an extensive cost-benefit analysis following the methodology of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).