The increased shares of renewable energy, combined with the rise in distributed generation are profoundly impacting electricity markets and the demand for system flexibility and business models of traditional utilities and distribution companies. This requires a rethinking of the way power sector markets are designed and operated as well as a timely and efficient adaptation of traditional market and operational mechanisms. The recent created clean energy legislation requires that Electricity Markets are created with “active customers/consumers and citizens” and “energy communities”. This new legislation asks for enhanced roles of DSOs and TSOs, particularly for a better coordination among stakeholders, procurement of ancillary services, flexibility, data management and integration of Electric Vehicles and must adapt network access and congestion tariffs & charges (flexibility). Markets must encourage the development of more flexible generation and demand and the elimination of obstacles to market-based pricing, remove regulatory distortions, enable scarcity pricing, interconnection, Demand Side Response and storage. Final customers must be enabled to buy electricity generation from aggregated, multiple power-generating facilities or load from multiple demand response facilities to provide joint offers on the electricity market and be jointly operated in the electricity system. Citizens must be offered competitive prices. BeFlexible aims at increasing energy system flexibility, enhancing cooperation among DSOs and TSOs and easing participation of all energy-related actors through the validation and large-scale demonstration of adapted and proven cross-sectoral services, interoperable platforms for smart grids operation developing further already demonstrated solutions and the creation of required system architecture framework to enable the creation of new business models providing additional value to meet consumers’ needs in compliance with a stable regulatory framework.

The objective of FitOptiVis is to develop an integral approach for smart integration of image- and video-processing pipelines for CPS covering a reference architecture, supported by low-power, high-performance, smart devices, and by methods and tools for combined design-time and run-time multi-objective optimisation within system and environment constraints. Low latency Image processing is often crucial for autonomy, and performing the right interaction of the CPS with its environment. The most important CPS in the project have sensors and processing at distributed places. For many reasons (parts of) CPS has to operate on low energy, whereas the complete system needs results with low latency. The focus of the project is on multi-objective optimisation for performance and energy use. However, other qualities, like reliability, security etc. also play a role in the optimisation.

Flexibility needs to be added to Europe’s power system to accommodate an increasing share of variable power generation from renewable sources. Indeed, service quality issues start to arise on the grid when this share in electricity consumption reaches 10%. To meet the EU’s targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions this share should rise to 30% by 2030 and up to 50% by 2050. The cost of this transition and the necessary measures to guarantee stable and continuous supply are a major political concern. The SABINA project responds to it by targeting the cheapest possible source of flexibility: the existing thermal inertia in buildings and the coupling between heat and electricity networks it enables. This coupling requires accurately estimating the thermal inertia of many buildings. SABINA’s partner the University of Navarra has created a breakthrough, automatic method for this estimation, which shall be scaled up, validated and integrated in a complete management system through this project. This system will operate on two complementary time horizons: • One day: aggregation and management at the district level of the electric and thermal flexibilities, and conversion and storage of the excess electrical energy to thermal energy in the freely available building inertia. • Seconds to minutes: local control of inverters feeding renewable electricity to the grid, with optimal parameters automatically determined at the district level. Research partners will develop novel control and optimization algorithms, and integrate and evaluate the system in lab and operational settings. The SABINA solution is compatible with both new and existing buildings; it is planned to be deployed within five years of the end of the project. Lead users are present in the consortium: Telvent and SMS plc, the coordinator, for the architecture, and Insero for the business model it enables; compliance and contribution to relevant standards will be ensured by the European Digital SME Alliance