BRIDGE investigates Europe’s energy transition’s increasing complexity

The BRIDGE general assembly in Brussels on 23-24 March highlighted how energy is no longer only a technical or environmental issue but a central dimension of regional autonomy and security. 

The emphasis was on how collaborative research and innovation efforts can reinforce Europe’s energy grids to remain reliable amid rapid electrification, renewable integration and evolving security threats, drawing on the findings in the four BRIDGE areas of interest – regulation, data exchange, business models and consumers and citizen engagement.

Key issues are the need for flexibility, the rise of digitalisation and the market uptake of research outputs, all while ensuring a consumer-centric approach.

Regulatory challenges

Opening a panel discussion from the regulatory perspective, José Pablo Chaves Ávila, deputy director of the Institute for Research in Technology at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas and chair of the regulation WG, said that the biggest barrier to scaling flexibility in European electricity markets is the transposition and harmonisation of EU regulation in member states.

“There are diverse approaches,” he said, highlighting as examples the absence of aggregators or the operation of energy communities in some countries.

“We really need demand to be flexible and for that we have to enable participation in the markets.”

Turning to the question of how market design can better integrate distributed energy resources and local flexibility, Ávila stressed that there is no ‘one solution fits all’, given the diversity of markets across the EU.

“That means the nature of the mechanisms that can be used have to be different,” he said.

Options for participation include flexible connection agreements for new customers or bilateral contracts for flexibility competition, while solutions can include bidding across markets and value stacking to increase the value of participation.

“It’s important to adapt but there must be alignment of the local flexibility mechanisms with the existing markets and for cross-border markets some harmonisation.”

Data sharing

Addressing the role of data sharing in improving the operation of Europe's energy grids, Dune Sebilleau, smart grid engineer at Trialog and chair of the data management WG, highlighted the importance of integrating data into all the different systems that form the grids.

“But data sharing is not only about the exchange of data but also interpreting it correctly, which can be challenging,” she commented. As an example, she mentioned the integration of data for flexibility from sectors such as heating and transport that must be interpreted similarly across these.

She also noted the need for large volumes of high quality data for training AI models so that they are precise and efficient.

Commenting on the broader challenges of achieving interoperability across platforms and systems developed by different projects, Sebilleau said a top issue is the many different communication protocols that are used and selecting the right one to connect them – one that the common European energy data space is anticipated to enable.

A second challenge is the growth in the development of ontologies for semantic interoperability and how they can be standardised so that data can be shared and interpreted in the same way across platforms.

There also are the issues of data privacy and cybersecurity.

“These need to be taken into account and evaluated before one can even think about sharing data across platforms and systems.”

Market readiness

Responding to the question of what makes an energy solution market ready, Andrej Gubina, Director of the Institute for Innovation and Development at the University of Ljubljana and honorary co-chair of the business models WG, said there are essentially three points – that it is technically sound, is backed by a good business model and has consumer demand.

“These are the pre-conditions, but it’s also important that the solution is aligned with the regulatory landscape and that the data can be secured across the business model value chain so that its progress in the market can be followed,” he adds.

But not all project solutions make commercial deployment and Gubina suggests several reasons – one that the developer may not have the expertise to develop the business model, another that there is no support ecosystem and a third that it fails in the market.

“We do piloting in a sandbox under controlled conditions but once in the market where those conditions are lifted, does the solution actually work and does anyone want to pay to use it and we either have to create the conditions or face the reality that they don’t exist.”

In particular, financial support is crucial at certain points, including to survive the first year  ‘valley of death’ as the solution scales up and starts gaining momentum in the market.

Consumer-centric energy transition 

A key challenge for the energy transition is consumer engagement but it is still limited, despite the many solutions developed over the years.

Michael Brenner-Fliesser, a social scientist at Joanneum Research and chair of the consumer and citizen engagement WG, attributes it to several factors such as the complexity of the new energy markets and the multitude of solutions that are available to them.

“As a research community, we probably need to invest more into somehow synergising the solutions we have and offering the consumer the best for their individual circumstances.”

Another point is that solutions that are developed must have a need from consumers, with clear benefits for them.

The main of these is financial and while providing some flexibility is not likely to deliver much benefit, financial pressures are nevertheless more likely to encourage the uptake of new solutions that can respond to these.

A further issue that Fliesser says has emerged as important is to engage with consumers as early on in projects as possible for co-creation of solutions – a challenge as a solution is generally already defined to secure the project funding – and to achieve trust with them.

“This involves a lot of investment of time but it is to ensure that the solution meets the needs of the citizens and that they believe it is really intended to help them.”