Three days. 15,000 power and energy experts. More than 700 stands. Hundreds of sessions and debates on digitalisation, decentralisation and decarbonisation. The numbers are impressive, but the impact generated by Enlit Europe is difficult to measure. INESC TEC participated, yet again, in the world’s largest stage of energy and technological innovation to present tech solutions for the sector. Want to know more?
From October 22 to 24, Milan was the meeting point for manufacturers of equipment for energy systems, power grid operators, operators of renewable energy generation plants, energy service providers, legislators, consultants, regulators and entities part of the scientific and technological system. The goal? To exchange ideas and knowledge between companies, professionals and experts in the sector, and present solutions to global energy challenges. During the event, INESC TEC sought to disseminate and strengthen the institution’s role as a leader in research and development concerning energy transition, digitalisation, smart grids and sustainability.
Featured technologies and infrastructures
This was an opportunity to disseminate and promote INESC TEC’s technological infrastructures focusing on power and energy systems, e.g., X-Energy, robotics, photonics, CLOUDinha, or TEC4SEA laboratories and facilities. The event was also important to emphasise the Aguçadoura ocean platform, with INESC TEC as shareholder.
“We seek to capitalize on our infrastructures and improve the interest of those who wish to carry out proofs of concept; in the case of Aguçadoura, we’re talking about demonstrations of new solutions for the generation of ocean energy,” explained Alberto Bernardo, Energy business developer at INESC TEC.
According to Alberto Bernardo, “the Institute’s technological competences” became quite clear during “the presentation of different services for operators of renewable energy generation systems, and for power grid operators” – developed through multiple research areas. “In this case, we are talking about testing substation automation systems using Hardware in the Loop, advanced training and network code compliance analysis, as well as services for stakeholders interested in using open platforms to integrate IOT (Internet-of-Things) solutions. This demonstrates the interdisciplinarity of our institution, and the fact that we rely on the support provided by researchers from areas: photonics, robotics and autonomous systems, critical systems or software engineering.”
The event featured technologies developed by INESC TEC, most of which within the scope of several international projects: software to support the management of energy communities – RECreation; electric vehicle charging solutions – EVFleet – and management of electric vehicle fleets – EVFlex; dynamic management of incentives for electric vehicle charging; energy storage systems, like the BESSize tool (used to scale hybrid energy storage systems with batteries) and BESSmng (used to manage hybrid energy storage systems with batteries) – both aimed at managing microgrids and hybrid power generation plants with the integration of different renewable sources and energy storage.
INESC TEC also presented other solutions that will revolutionise the energy markets – like a data analysis, demand forecasting and energy production platform – during a talk. The Optimal Bidding solution – focused on the energy markets – and the GDBN (Grid Data Business Network) digital platform – based on cloud computing to aggregate, connect and gather key stakeholders to promote new business services for energy flexibility – also featured in the event.
The institution’s stand also showcased optical sensors to measure real-time values of electric current and the concentration of hydrogen or methane.
In addition, INESC TEC also presented a wide range of services aimed at ocean platforms for renewable energy generation, as well as advanced training, network code compliance analysis, or technical and economic feasibility analysis studies of investments in renewable energy, green hydrogen or energy storage, among others.
Discussions about the future of the sector
José Ricardo Andrade, INESC TEC researcher, participated in the session “CERF Session: Towards a Common European Reference Framework for energy-saving applications” focused on the digitalisation of the energy sector, and in the session “Data market applied to renewable and interconnector forecasts”, where he presented INESC TEC’s contributions in transforming data into practical and efficient solutions, with the presentation of a collaborative forecasting platform – Predico – that connects companies interested in obtaining forecasts of renewable energy production with different forecast service providers, maximising the final quality of the forecast and the service provided.
Alexandre Lucas, also a researcher at INESC TEC, participated in a panel discussion on interoperability and data spaces – “Energy Data Spaces organized by int:net” – focusing on INESC TEC’s work within the scope of the InterSTORE project. The researcher addressed several topics, including the safe and efficient data sharing, namely battery operation data and electric vehicle chargers, enabling applications like the performance analysis of photovoltaic systems, the establishment of ecological rankings for electric vehicle charging, as well as battery anomaly detection models. The researcher mentioned that the results of the InterSTORE project are available in open source for the public and interested researchers.
“Our participation in Enlit Europe was an excellent opportunity to present and promote solutions that we have developed, all with high technological maturity, as well as consulting services for the energy systems market in Europe. We want to leverage new business with European customers and to strengthen and establish new partnerships with different reference stakeholders. In addition, several INESC TEC researchers involved in the development of solutions for energy systems were able to demonstrate how we collaborate on international projects, while initiating contacts with current market solutions featured in Enlit,” said João Peças Lopes.
During the third edition of Enlit, INESC TEC strengthened the commitment to contribute to a more sustainable future through science, technology and innovation.
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