Europe’s power system has seen significant changes in recent decades, notably the development of renewable energy sources. However, this transition is far from complete, and further changes are essential to make our energy system ready to play its part in realising the climate goals set at COP21. At present, renewable energy sources are increasing their share of electricity generation. This is particularly the case for offshore wind energy. InnoDC's 14 participants prepare 15 early career researchers to play their role in the energy transition that will take place over the next 20-40 years. The project focusses on the development of the electricity transmission system, targeting the connection of offshore wind, the integration of offshore wind with the existing power system (including the use of HVDC), and the operation of the future power system where large scale wind is connected to a hybrid AC and DC power system. Technological development for offshore wind is ongoing. This research project focusses on the models and methodologies for the integration of these new technologies (e.g. offshore wind turbines, VSC HVDC converters, long AC cables) into the power system. Challenges in these areas will be addressed in this project: firstly, these new devices behave inherently differently to traditional power system components. Secondly, the multi-actor/intersectoral nature of these systems means that they have distinct elements and devices interfacing with each other, each with limited information of the overall system. The project will train the researchers in developing prototype tools to aid the developers and users of these new energy systems. This training network aims to train the researchers of the future in the pivotal sector of renewable energy and grid technology, which is largely led by research and industry. This project prepares the researchers of tomorrow to maintain Europe’s position of leadership in renewable, smart energy and tackling climate change.

HEDGE-IoT proposes a novel Digital Framework which aims to deploy IoT assets at different levels of the energy system (from behind-the-meter, up to the TSO level), to add intelligence to the edge and cloud layers through advanced AI/ML tools and to bridge the cloud/edge continuum introducing federated applications governed by advanced computational orchestration solutions. The HEDGE-IoT Framework will upgrade the RES-hosting capacity of the energy systems and will unleash a previously untapped flexibility potential. It will increase the resilience of the grid, create new market opportunities and promote advances in IoT standardization, by introducing and managing a plethora of diversified, interoperable energy services over scalable and highly distributed data platforms and infrastructure. The multi-dimensional framework of HEDGE-IoT comprises the following pillars: (a) the Technology Facilitator Pillar will exploit the computational sharing by offloading applications on the grid edge, towards providing a set AI/ML federated learning and swarm computing applications; (b) the Interoperability Pillar, which leverages on leading-edge interoperable architectures, such as the Data Space architectures; (c) the Standardisation Pillar will enable all involved platforms, systems, tools and actors to seamlessly communicate and exchange data in standardized formats using widely used standards, such as SAREF, etc.; (d) the Digital Energy Ecosystem Enabling Pillar will ensure the creation of an ecosystem facilitating the increased integration of RES and characterised by resilience. Liaisons with EU initiatives for IoT and digitalisation will be established (e.g., the AIOTI) and the engagement of stakeholders will be ensured by addressing IoT ethics and cultivating trust among end-users, thus promoting inclusivity. Scalability and replicability studies will be performed and connections with innovators and SMEs will be established through the Open Call mechanism of the project.

Orchestrating an interoperable sovereign federated Multi-vector Energy data space built on open standards and ready for GAia-X The aim of OMEGA-X is to implement a data space (based on European common standards), including federated infrastructure, data marketplace and service marketplace, involving data sharing between different stakeholders and demonstrating its value for real and concrete Energy use cases and needs, while guaranteeing scalability and interoperability with other data space initiatives, not just for energy but also cross-sector. The proposed concept and architecture heavily rely on the approaches adopted by IDSA, GAIA-X, FIWARE, BDVA/DAIRO and SGAM as major EU references regarding data spaces. It will pursue the GAIA-X label, which ensures highest standards on protection, security, transparency, openess and trust, avoids vendor lock-in and restricted to EU countries. • Federated infrastructure for data ingestion. There are a lot of independent platforms for data ingestion/storage, open and private. The goal is to define the minimum interoperability and federation requirements needed for these platforms to adhere to the Energy Data Space and be able to share data in a trusted and secure way. • Data Space Marketplaces. This is the common ground where data, which is already harmonized semantically, is indexed, and referenced, maintaining always the required standards of identity, trust and sovereignty. Using the data space as baseline, a marketplace is implemented for stakeholders to share, use and monetize data and services. Data/service providers will be able to advertise their data/services, and data/service users will be able to discover multiple data sets and services. • Advanced Energy Use Case demonstration. Using all aforementioned layers underneath, 4 use cases families (Renewables, LEC, Electromobility and Flexibiilty) will showcased o prove the value of having a common data space for a particular problem identified by energy stakeholders.