Energy Data Clusters’ meeting (30 September 2022)

energy

Last 30 September 2022, a meeting where representatives from diverse energy dataspace initiatives gathered to present their projects was organised under the name “CLUSTER MEETING
BUILDING THE GROUNDS FOR AN ENERGY DATA SPACE”. The objective was to share some initial objectives (some of the projects had just started or were about to) and pave the way for future collaboration.

Expectations from the European Commission

A representative from the Directorate General Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT) of the European Commission joined the cluster event in order to present the vision and expectations of this institution in regard to dataspaces.

First of all, the specific Horizon Europe call was introduced and the expected outcomes, highlighted. These are:

  • Higher degree of interoperability between data platforms: energy data made available and re-usable; Enable new market roles, market participants and energy communities;
  • Pilot innovative solutions: Demonstrated implementations of Energy Data Spaces;
  • Open Approach: exploiting open standards related to data-packages, interfaces, protocols,
    platforms and procedures;
  • Enabling new digital solutions and services (marketplace): Supporting the energy transition; Increased acceptance and participation of consumers on data sharing for energy services, new actors

In addition, the DG CNECT representative also outlined that they wanted to achieve the following from every data space related project:

  • Pilot innovative solutions that connect to existing European, cross-border and national initiatives
  • Tools and Accessible data that make data accessible (and the definition of common Metadata)
  • Demonstrate interoperability among projects with common building blocks
  • Identification of MIMs and definition of interoperability requirements, such as data models or communication protocols
  • The use of dissemination activities to sustain a community beyond the project duration

More information can be found in the “European Strategy for Data” from the European Commission.

Presentation of energy dataspaces

This cluster meeting organised by int:net on the 30 September 2022, gathered five EU dataspace projects in addition to their own: OMEGA-X, SYNERGIES, ENERSHARE, EDDIE, OPEN DEI and DATA CELLAR (More information on these and other related initiatives can be found in the dedicated page on this website), who made the presentations about how they planned to develop the idea to life and seek further ways of cooperation.

Since the project had started in May 2022, INT:NET presented its project overview with the vision for interoperability knowledge base on energy services in Europe, the Interoperability Maturity Model (IMM), the network of interoperability testing facilities and the vision for a community network for a European interoperability ecosystem.

OMEGA-X went beyond and presented how their project fit in the EU energy dataspace sphere and why these are becoming the more and more strategic. Next, the representative detailed that renewables (three pilot sites, two countries), local energy communities (five pilot sites, four countries), electromobility (two pilot sites, three countries) and flexibility (one pilot site, one country) will be the use cases. Additionally, further details about cooperation and interoperability were given.

DATA CELLAR was the next project presented represented by the coordinator, RINA. The main overview of the project, the validation cases, the impact and vision were introduced. (See more information about DATA CELLAR in the section “About the project” of this website).

ENERSHARE started by flagging a few issues that should be tackled in cooperation with other dataspaces, such as the heterogeneous architectures or the nsufficient Interoperability and Data Harmonization before continuing with the outlook of the objectives (architecture, interoperability, – Trust & Sovereignty and Data Value Stack) and the pilots.

The representative from SYNERGIES, not only summarised the main characteristics of the project, but also allowed the audience to see the architecture that they foresaw to implement.

EDDIE is a project that is bound to start in January 2023 who presented their vision on the European Energy Data sector that they believed it was too business-centric, and the three different deployment options that they would assess.

Finally, the delegate from OPEN DEI explained how their work was organised around four Working Groups (WG), energy, manufacturing, healthcare and agrifood; and four cross-domain task forces. In addition, they offered some key takeaways about the experience with clustering activities in regards to project outcomes, people and the importance of an heterogeneous group of experts; the continuous exploration of initiatives; the benefits of working cross-domain; and the necessity of transformation of the ecosystem and its technologies.