EU Energy Projects Podcast: Advancing AC-DC hybrid electricity networks

The increasing deployment of distributed energy resources has focused attention on the need for DC power systems, with many of these operating in DC or including a DC stage.

HYNET is one of a group of projects advancing DC technologies, with its focus on the design and planning of AC/DC hybrid power systems.

Specifically, it aims to establish standardised methodologies for multi-terminal, multi-vendor MVDC and LVDC systems and to develop and demonstrate solutions for adopting and deploying DC power systems across all voltage levels.

For Zafeiropoulos, technology director at Ubitech Energy and the project coordinator, Hynet stands out for the breadth of expertise in the project consortium, from researchers to technology providers, manufacturers, IT experts and system operators.

Approximately one year into the three-year project, he reports that a good deal of progress has been made and cites the development of the use cases as one of the most important achievements.

“In these use cases, we will practically test the tools that we develop,” he says, noting that most are starting from TRL 3 or 4 and the aim is to advance them to TRL 5, i.e. to testing in real-world scenarios.

Four demonstrations are planned for the tools and an accompanying data sharing platform that is also under development – in the French Caribbean island of Guadalupe, Norway, Montenegro and Spain – and will be the main focus in the second half of the project.

“These demonstration sites will generate network configurations that reflect the real needs of the electricity networks and address the more complex problems that may appear,” comments Zafeiropoulos.

Areas of interest include system planning, DC microgrids simulation, grid forming, inertia support, reliability, resilience and security.

Another important achievement noted is the validation plan with the KPIs to measure the success of the project tools at the end.

But important as this is, the end of the project (September 2027) is not envisaged as an end in itself but as a step towards taking the technologies further up the TRL scale and to their deployment across the region.

“This is in our focus, and we are targeting several communication and dissemination events regarding the project and we will try to closely connect with the end users – the system operators – during the demonstration phase,” Zafeiropoulos concludes.

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Listen to previous episodes:

Extending turbine lifetimes: Lessons from project WILLOW

Flexibility, digitalisation and the energy nexus: How EU projects are shaping smarter energy systems