TheStrategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan)is thetechnology driverof the European energy policy. It aims at fostering and implementing the transition process to a low-carbon, secure and competitive energy system. This transition must take place within five closely related areas deemed strategic forthe Energy Union: security, solidarity and trust; a fully integrated internal energy market; energy efficiency; climate ection – decarbonising the economy; and research, innovation and competitiveness.

In this transition process, the evolution and development of energy infrastructure is among the priorities of the European energy agenda. Indeed, in order to ensure reliability of supply in each European country and create a community energy market, it is essential to have an optimal and, above all, coordinated planning of the investments needed to adapt, improve and develop the existing transmission grid. At this stage, it is also important to take advantage of the various innovative technologies, already available or under development, to facilitate the integration of energy generated from non-programmable renewable sources into the grid and enhance interconnections between countries. For the latter, in theEnergy Union Package, the European Commission has called for rapid implementation of all measures necessary for each member state to achieve theminimum interconnection targetsat 2020 and 2030 (equal to 10% and 15% of installed generation capacity, respectively). At present, Italy is one of the eight countries in the European Community that does not meet these targets.

This is the backdrop of the activities carried out in this Project, which started in 2015.

In order to accurately and consistently assess the impact of transmission grid expansion in terms of economics, reliability, and system security, simulation tools are being developed that are robust enough to analyse grids that are real-size and flexible enough to properly integrate innovative technologies and assess their effectiveness.

At the same time, grid planning must also delve into social and environmental aspects as it is often the case that projects are hindered more by strong local opposition rather than technological limitations. To speed up theiterauthorisation process, the Project proposed and validated, within the European INSPIRE-Grid Project, a multidisciplinary approach that combines the development of decision support tools with the study of processes and thus facilitates the involvement ofstakeholders.