Power systems undergo massive technological changes due to the ever increasing concerns for environmental and energy sustainability. The increase of RES and DG penetration is one of the main goals in Europe in order to meet the environmental targets. However these goals will require new business cases and must be based on innovative ICT tools and communication infrastructure. On parallel, following the M/490 EU Mandate, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI proposed a technical report describing the Smart Grid Reference Architecture and the Smart Grids Architecture Model (SGAM) framework. A key objective of new Research and Innovation projects should be to provide solutions and ICT tools compatible with the SGAM and the standardization activity in Europe. Such new projects should also support the standardization activity by proposing additions or changes related to their objectives. Another key issue to address is whether the existing telecommunication infrastructure is sufficient to support in mass scale the new business cases and Smart Grid services. SmarterEMC2 implements ICT tools that support Customer Side Participation and RES integration, and facilitate open access in the electricity market. These tools take into account the SGAM as well the future structure of the Distribution Network as described by the relevant EU bodies and organizations. The project supports standardization activity by proposing adaptation to data models of market-oriented standards (IEC 62325-351) and field level standards (IEC 61850). Moreover, the project is fully dedicated towards achieving a maximum of impact. To validate the proposed technologies, the project includes 3 real-world pilots and large-scale simulation in 3 laboratories. The former will demonstrate the impact of Demand Response and Virtual Power Plants services in the real world settings, while the latter will reveal the ability of the communication networks to support massive uptake of such services.

PEAKapp targets the development of an unprecedented ICT-to- Human ecosystem to trigger lasting energy savings through behavioural change and continuous engagement, to enable increased consumption of clean and low-priced electricity from the spot market for household customers, to connect them to social networks, to motivate them through serious gaming, and to boost the efficacy of Smart Home building energy management systems by integrating their functionalities into the PEAKapp solution. With this first close-to-market-ready attempt to provide households with a dynamic electricity tariff in the EU, the door is opened for the most significant impact on the household electricity market since its liberalisation. The ICT ecosystem will be designed to require smart meters as only hardware with respect to in-house equipment, such that the system can be implemented almost immediately, given the EU targets for smart meter roll-out. These low hardware requirements allow for a fast market uptake, and thus a noticeable impact on EU energy consumption can be experienced with almost no delay and without the need of having to equip the 230mio dwellings in the EU with any extra efficiency hardware. Validation of the ICT ecosystem under real life conditions in the publicly owned social housing sector will be carried out in Austria, Estonia, Sweden and Latvia, and analyses of the collected data will allow for ground-breaking insights into consumer behaviour, while outstanding EU energy market analyses will derive implications for regulatory practice to better support energy efficiency goals. An outstanding market uptake strategy makes >3 electricity utilities ready-to-sign the implementation of the ICT-system, advises the European social housing sector about its benefits, and fosters European and international market uptake by distinguished exploitation activities, where the leading US stakeholder EPRI takes responsibility without funding.