The first PlatOne General Assembly took place at the premises of ACEA, the Roman electricity Distribution System Operator.

The first ​Urban Energy Lab Symposium took place at E.ON Energy Research Center.
Representatives of industry and research exchanged about future urban energy systems through presentations and discussions.

Prof. Ponci and Wilbert Tarnate participated in a lively and productive project meeting with partners, hosted by OTEAcademy in Athens. The tools, methods and materials for the education of people involved in the energy transition are coming along! The partners are looking forward to putting them to work in the upcoming months.
The project meeting was followed by a two-day trainers workshop. It was a great opportunity for partners to take home lots of ideas for creating a great learning environment for adults.

Hendrik Flamme represented ACS at the technical meeting in Terni (Italy) on 17 December, which was hosted by ASM Terni SpA. The topic of the meeting was the identification of vulnerabilities and cyber security threats related to the trial sites.

The first demo site within the Swedish CoordiNet demonstration to launch is the site Skåne by EON Energidistribution in Sweden. This demo will have 5 flexibility providers, with a volume of 60 MW, participating in the first demo, from January 2020.
ACS developed the underlying load forecast for the prediction of the grid state.
The algorithm serves already as a basis for the trading actions in the Day-Ahead market.

EBC and ACS invited their project partners in the BMWi project AGENT to a three-day workshop in Aachen. The participants worked closely together to advance the implementation of the agent platform and the MPC-based control for non-residential buildings.

Alberto Dognini gave a presentation about "Future Functionalities of the Dynamic Grid" at the Smart Grid Forum - Digital Substations 2019 in Berlin, describing the developments and results obtained in the projects FISMEP, SOGNO and NRG-5.

FEIN e.V. invites to the talk by Prof. Dave Bakken about the topic "Coordination in Decentralized Grids". Details can be found at the link.

Robert Uhl attended the second German Real-time Simulation and Hardware-in-the-Loop workshop at KIT in Karlsruhe, Germany. He presented the status of the institute's work on a novel grid emulator concept, which emulates a measured wideband-frequency grid impedance.

Prof. Ponci has given a keynote speech about Monitoring of the new Power System at the "Fraunhofer Innovation and Networking Days" event in Bonn. "World Cafe" sessions provided a great opportunity for open discussion and networking. The topics covered in all talks and groups also show that in Learning and Education project ASSET is the way to go.

Nikolaus Wirtz represented ACS in the DEFENDER project meeting in Acre (Israel), hosted by Dr. Frucht Systems Limited. In addition to the meeting, several DEFENDER components and the DEFENDER security platform - including a component for simulating potential attack progressions, developed at ACS -  have been demonstrated and evaluated in a local testing area.

Marco Pau and Prof. Monti participated at the SOGNO project meeting in Berlin and at the following innovation event organized by the SOGNO project on the role of 5G for future smart grids and smart cities. The project meeting and the innovation event were hosted by BAUM, one of the partners of the project.​

On October 23, Stephan Gross moderated the session on "Miscellaneous Control Issues" at the IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids (IEEE SmartGridComm) in Beijing, China. As part of the session, the following publications were presented.

On 22 October, Stephan Gross presented his publication on "Multi-Microgrid Energy Management Systems in Times of 5G" at the IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids (IEEE SmartGridComm) in Beijing, China.

Milica Bogdanovic, Hendrik Flamme, Sebastian Schwarz and Steffen Vogel have successfully presented their research papers at the 45th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2019) in Lisbon (Portugal). The titles of their publications can be found under the weblink below.

Prof. Monti and Bettina Schäfer participated at the kick-off conference of the Revierknoten for Energy and Industry at Raketenstation Hombroich. The Revierknoten are part of the Zukunftskonzept NRW.

The final review of the project RESERVE took place in Brussels.

Gonca Gürses-Tran participated in a workshop on "Needs, challenges and opportunities of TSO-DSO coordination". There she presented the business use cases (IEC 62559-2), identified for the demo sites of the H2020 project, Coordinet. The presenters closed the workshop with a panel discussion.

PlatOne is a 4 year H2020 project led by ACS. The consortium includes E.DSO, equipment and software manufacturers and DSOs in Italy, Greece and Germany.
Volatile renewable energy sources in combination with less predictable consumption patterns call for higher levels of observability and exploitation of flexibility. While these two challenges are traditionally treated with separate means, PlatOne proposes an innovative approach to a joint data management for both. Fully respecting the existing regulatory framework, a layered set of platforms will allow to meet the needs of system operators, aggregators and end users. A blockchain based platform is the access layer to generators’ and customers’ flexibilities able to break traditional access barriers by providing certified measures to all the players. In conjunction, certified data and signals will be used for an innovative DSO platform to locally maintain system integrity fostering confidence in flexibility operations. An upper layer will implement a new concept of blockchain-based open market platform to link the local system to the TSO domains and enhance the overall system cost efficiency. Because flexibility means customer involvement, PlatOne puts the grid users at the centre, investigates their needs and expectations and uses the underlying blockchain to unlock the potentials of higher dynamics of response. The platforms will be tested in 3 large pilots in Europe and analysed in cooperation with a large research initiative in Canada. Thanks to strategic partnerships and a unique consortium structure with an excellent network, PlatOne can offer an unprecedented effort of dissemination and exploitation with focus on DSO experts and final users.

Prof. Monti, Gianluca Lipari and Gonca Gürses-Tran attended the technical meeting on Monday where the consortium defined the next steps to develop further the demonstration campaigns.

On Tuesday, essential results of the first work package have been presented to the advisory board and external stakeholders. Among the other presentations, Gonca summarized the business use cases that have been developed to link harmonized services, products, and market models, with the scope and objectives of the CoordiNet demos.

Hendrik Flamme and Nikolaus Wirtz participated in the kickoff meeting of the project PHOENIX hosted by the project coordinator Capgemini at their new office building "147" in the Paris region. The PHOENIX consortium is comprised of 24 partners from 11 countries, cooperating to increase resilience of the European Electic Power and Energy System (EPES) by protecting it against cyber and privacy incidents and attacks.

PHOENIX is part of the EU's largest research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020. The project will run for three years.

RESERVE developed technical solutions in voltage and frequency control of LV and MV grids to enable up to 100% RES. As well as this, RESERVE made updated and new Network Codes and Ancillary Services. The Network Codes are in the process of standardisation. This event was about bringing the message to political decision makers, based on a set of proposals for citizens' discussion.

Dr. Pau presented two papers on "Impact of Network Parameters Uncertainties on Distribution Grid Power Flow" and on "A Compressive Sensing Approach for Fault Location in Distribution Grid Branches" at the 2nd International Conference on Smart Energy Systems and Technologies (SEST), held in Porto, Portugal.

The kickoff meeting of the project "Blockchain Real Laboratory in the Rhineland Territory" was held today. Representatives of RWTH Aachen University met Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, Minister for Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitisation and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, in Düsseldorf.

The trainees Philipp Dreßen and Intan Purnamasari both successfully completed their vocational training to MATSE at the Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems. We congratulate them and wish them success for the future.

On August 21 and 22, the project consortium of the N5GEH project met at the E.ON ERC in Aachen to advance the joint platform development. During the two days performance tests were analyzed and the joint software development was homogenized.

Diala Nouti, Gaurav Roy and Sebastian Schwarz represented ACS during the official iELECTRIX kick-off meeting that was hosted by the techical project director E.ON at their premises in Essen. The consortium includes 15 European partners from 9 European Union member states and Tata Power from India with the overall objective of increasing the role of Local Energy Communities (LECs) in speeding up Renewable Energy Sources (RES) integration in power grids.
iELECTRIX is part of the EU's largest research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020. The project will run for three and a half years.

Stefan Dähling participated in the 5-days kickoff sprint of the project AGENT hosted by Bosch at their research campus in Renningen. The project partners discussed goals, methods and interfaces for their cooperation. An initial architecture for the agent-based building automation system was developed. Moreover, a detailed work plan for the next six month was compiled.

Andrea Angioni successfully defended his dissertation "Uncertainty modeling for analysis and design of monitoring systems for dynamic electrical distribution grids".

With his master thesis "Parallel Optimization in Demand Response Architectures - Challenges, Requirements, Applications" Sebastian Schwarz won the Best Diploma Thesis Award 2019. The price was awarded on the Power Engineering Student Summit in Magdeburg.

The project eSafeNet is featured in the annual report "Innovation durch Forschung" 2018 by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Projects funded by the ministry, that are contributing to the energy transition, are featured in this brochure. It is available as download or print media at the link.

Dr. Pau presented the software tool developed in ACS for the generation of realistic PV profiles for distribution grid simulations at the 7th International Conference on Clean Electrical Power (ICCEP), held in Otranto, Italy. The software tool is freely downloadable at the link.

Chijioke Eze, Abhinav Sadu, Marija Stevic and Nikolaus Wirtz represented ACS in the DEFENDER project meeting in Brétigny-sur-Orge (France), hosted by Engie SA. In addition to the meeting, several DEFENDER components and the DEFENDER security platform have been demonstrated and evaluated in a local testing area.

ACS participates at the faculty football tournament, which will take place on 12.07. from 10:00 to 15:00.

Marco Pau represented ACS during the SOGNO project meeting in Craiova, Romania. The meeting was hosted by CEZ Romania, one of the DSOs hosting a field trial for the project. More information about the project can be found at the SOGNO website.

Prof. Antonello Monti has been selected by the IEEE Global Public Policy Committee to be part of this committee. It prepares reports and position papers to directly advise the European Parliament in the development of legislation related to Energy.

Dr. Gianluca Lipari and Gonca Gürses-Tran joined the meeting for WP1 and WP2 task leaders in Milan. They presented the draft for the finalization of CoordiNet Task 1.5 on business use cases of the demonstration campaigns in Greece, Spain and Sweden.

Robert Ferdinand successfully defended his dissertation "Grid Operation of HVDC-Connected Offshore Wind Farms: Power Quality and Switching Strategies".

Ting Wang has given an oral presentation about his research work in FEN research Project about the protection of DC distribution grids on 04.06 in the conference PEDG 2019 in Xi'an, China.

Dr. Marco Cupelli, Henning Wilms and Gonca Gürses-Tran each presented a poster on their research activities covering advanced control schemes and forecasting techniques with reference to the H2020 INTERFLEX project.

Gonca Gürses-Tran and Hendrik Flamme represented ACS at the IHK Aachen workshop on challenges and opportunities associated with the imminent structural transformation in the Rhenish lignite mining area. In this context, future scenarios were developed and it was discussed how regional research facilities could contribute to realize those scenarios. In particular, the focus of the event was on digitalization and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Pau presented the tool developed in the SOGNO project for the optimal placement of switches in distribution grids at the 1st International Conference on Energy Transition in the Mediterranean Area (SyNERGYMED), held in Cagliari (Italy).

Prof. Ferdinanda Ponci and Wilbert Tarnate represented ACS in ASSET's kickoff meeting. ATOS, the project coordinator, hosted the meeting from May 27 to May 28, 2019, in Madrid, Spain. Around 30 participants from academic and industry partners from 6 European countries are present in the meeting. ASSET aims to establish a sustainable ecosystem for energy transition and education stakeholders. In ASSET, ACS will lead the preparation of learning contents for university programs and MOOCs.​

Robert Uhl attends the biennial workshop on system identification at the ELEC department, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium, from 27.5. until 21.6.2019. More information on the workshop can be found at the link.

Bettina Schäfer and Diala Nouti represented ACS during the coordination kick-off meeting that was hosted by the project coordinator Enedis at their premises in Paris. The consortium includes 15 European partners from 9 European Union member states and Tata Power from India with the overall objective of increasing the role of Local Energy Communities (LECs) for speeding up Renewable Energy Sources (RES) integration in power grids. ​​​

Prof. Ponci participates to the Administration Committee meetings of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society in Auckland, New Zealand. An intense week culminating in the full day AdCom meeting, to serve the IMS members at best.

The kickoff meeting of the new BMWi project AGENT was held on 23rd May at the Bosch Research Campus in Renningen. ACS was represented by Igor Sowa and Stefan Dähling. AGENT deals with agent-based energy management systems in nonresidential buildings. Project partners are Robert Bosch GmbH, FAU Erlangen and RWTH Aachen University with the two institutes EBC and ACS.

Prof. Ponci presents the new OS-based low cost PMU and a contactless sensor for domestic power measurement in Auckland, New Zealand at I2MTC 2019, the flagship conference of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society.

The RESERVE Open Day was held at ESB Networks in Dublin, Ireland on 15.05.2019. ESB is running 7 field trials of the voltage control techniques developed in RESERVE to support 100% renewable energy source penetration.  Pictures from the Open Day are at the link. Also, a project meeting was held at UCD in Dublin.

Dr. Pau and Prof. Monti presented the SOGNO and RESERVE project at the InnoGrid conference in Brussels. InnoGrid is a EU event on innovation in electricity networks organised by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) and the European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids (EDSO), which showcases the most innovative projects at European level in the field of electrical transmission and distribution grids.