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

That shift is at the heart of this episode of the EU Energy Projects Podcast, which brought together four Horizon Europe projects from the Energy Nexus Cluster: RESONANCE, INDEPENDENT, GlocalFlex and ELEXIA. 

Despite their different focus areas, the projects share a common goal: enabling a more flexible, data-driven and interconnected energy system, as Juho Kivelä and Joseba Jimeno explain. For the GlocalFlex project, this means developing a local flexibility marketplace where demand response can be traded regardless of technology or scale. Automated trading agents, the project team explained, are designed to make flexibility participation almost invisible to end users, lowering barriers for households, municipalities and businesses alike.

Flexibility, however, cannot function without a robust digital backbone. This is where RESONANCE and INDEPENDENT come in. Both projects are developing modular software components and standardised interfaces that allow energy resources to communicate and respond automatically. Interoperability, Kivelä and Jimeno stressed, is essential for flexibility markets are to scale beyond pilots and work across Europe’s highly diverse energy landscapes.

The ELEXIA project adds another layer by focusing on sector coupling and using synergies between electricity, heating, cooling and other energy carriers to optimise consumption and reduce emissions, particularly in urban and industrial settings.

The discussion also highlighted the challenges ahead. Differences in national regulation, infrastructure readiness and consumer behaviour mean that one-size-fits-all solutions remain unrealistic. Automation and “plug-and-play” technologies are seen as critical to overcoming these gaps, especially for users with limited technical expertise.

Looking forward, Kivelä and Jimeno pointed to the European Commission’s dual role as both funder and regulator. Beyond supporting innovation, they argued, long-term regulatory continuity will be key to ensuring that solutions developed today can deliver lasting impact, turning flexibility from a policy ambition into an everyday reality across Europe.

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Listen to previous episodes:

EU Energy Projects Podcast: How the EU plans to support AI in the energy sector
EU Energy Projects Podcast: How space data is advancing the energy sector

More on flexibility:

Empowering communities: Insights from the InterPED citizen-centric approach
Putting data at the heart of the DSO evolution