The initiative would like to advance the integration of smart grids system technologies, stakeholder adoption and market processes to help Europe make progress towards achieving its short-term 2020, medium-term 2035 and long-term 2050 energy targets. Cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary system innovation will be essential to realising these targets.

The first Joint Call of ERA-Net Smart Grids Plus, launched in 2015, intended to promote piloting and demonstration in the field of smart grids, with a focus on validation, scale-up and replication, integrating the three research layers of Stakeholder/Adoption, Marketplace and Technology. An evaluation process was carried out and 21 projects were awarded, which started their activities with a kickoff meeting on June 15-16, 2016 in Split (Croatia). The total project budget is € 47 million, whereas the approved funding is € 31 million.

ERA-Net Smart Grids Plus launched a second call for proposals for European transnational projects on Smart Grids, which closed on June 15, 2016. The total available budget is approximately €24 million. The expected project start date is 1 February 2017 – 1 April 2017.

In order to fulfil the multilevel approach of the ERA-Net Smart Grids Plus initiative a series of measures are being implemented to support the programme coordination activities. Responsible of such measures is a specific Support Project, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) (Austria) and is being carried out by BAUM Consult GmbH (Germany) as coordinator, RSE S.p.A. (Italy) and Cleen Ltd. (Finland).

The Support Team is establishing the so called Knowledge Community, which will be one of the central instruments of ERA-Net Smart Grids Plus in order to foster transnational learning and maximize impact. With this aim the knowledge community will organize the learning towards scaling-up and replication by establishing thematic working groups and living documents on specific crosscutting issues, linking initiatives on the national and regional level and connecting this community with the European level. In particular, the project set up and will maintain a Knowledge Sharing Platform for ERA-Net SG+ knowledge, called EXPERA, which can be easily accessed by external experts . Finally the project will support the transfer of results to the public.