The project addresses the issues with a system approach, supporting institutions and national and international technical regulatory authorities to accelerate the development, testing and availability of the technologies necessary for the energy transition.

The project covers four research fields: new models, network control architectures and logic, flexibility of the electricity system, aggregation of distributed resources and generation and load forecasting. The project also envisages close support for national and international coordination and regulatory activities.

All the planned activities started in 2019. Starting from the scenarios envisaged by the latest version of the Strategia Energetica Nazionale [SEN, Italian National Energy Strategy] and in order to achieve the objectives proposed by the PNIEC [Italian Integrated Energy and Climate Plan], the activities evaluate planning and operation alternatives, the initial validation of the operating methods of networks in full operation and in the event of a fault, the improvement in the observability, monitoring and analysis of the stability and level of Power Quality. The project considered mixed alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) distribution networks, networks organized into microgrids, cells or aggregates. The analysis began of the role of the main players, such as distributed resources, non-programmable renewable sources, hydroelectric pumping systems, including with hybrid configurations, electrochemical storage systems, active users, with a view to providing flexibility services to the network, adequacy analysis for frequency regulation and participation in the balancing and market for dispatching services (MDS). In order to ensure network operation in these contexts, new generation and load forecasting techniques need to be developed, necessary for the definition and development of the different configurations of network energy management systems.

Finally, the document also summarizes participation in initiatives aimed at accelerating the innovation of the national electricity system, in the definition of national and international R&I strategic and implementation plans (EERA, ISGAN, Mission Innovation) and in technical standardization activities (CEI [Italian electrotechnical committee], CENELEC, IEC).