Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Hello everyone. In this episode of the EU Energy Projects podcast, I'm joined by Luis Cunha, the chair of eTipsnet.
The smart networks for Energy Transition platform is one of a number of platforms set up by the European Commission to guide research and development and innovation in space, specified areas in this case to support the energy transition.
As Etipsnet comes up for its 10th anniversary, it counts many achievements of which we will hear shortly. But before then, I'd like to start talking about its current activities.
And Luis, perhaps you could start by talking about the current policy and research developments at a high level within etpsnet.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: First of all, thank you very much, Jonathan, for inviting me to be here today, having this conversation with you. It's a pleasure on behalf of eDipsnet and going directly to your question on the policy and research priorities that we have right now.
I think within etpsnet we cover a lot of different topics in the energy sector, concretely on smart networks for the energy transition and making it a little bit simpler on smart grids.
And when it comes to smart grids, we cover the grid itself, or the system as we call it, the system of systems, and everything that connects to the system.
And if you think this in this way, very rational way, then it's easy to understand what are the priorities. On one side you need to make sure that you connect all the things that you need to connect to the grid from the generation side. And on the other side you need to make sure that you also receive all the connections that need to be connected there from the demanding side.
And in between you have a system that is the machine that makes sure that all these parts connect together and work in perfect symphony.
And what we do as priorities is actually to find out in each moment in time what are the long term needs that we need to work on, or at least to plan our work to make sure that everything is aligned. Then we go a little bit deeper into the medium term just to find out what are the priorities, upcoming priorities, and then we go to the short term where we fine tune the real needs that we need in place right now.
Thinking on this, it's very easy to understand that renewables integration, it's always a hot topic.
Efficient, secure, reliable energy network management is also a very important topic. And then everything that relates to distributed energy resources integration and consumer participation, with notably also flexibility, which is a way of bringing also consumers on board in the energy transition. It's also a priority for us. And then you can imagine whatever is in between the technical Topics that we have to work on. All this is part of our main priorities right now in etipsnet.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: What's the status of the activities according to the research and innovation plan?
[00:03:10] Speaker A: The best way to address that question is if you consider that what we do in ethpsnet is a kind of moving window. So you always need to think on these three terms, long, medium and short term.
So right now we are preparing what we call the 10 year roadmap for innovation. So the 10 year is the long term vision. After that, what we are going to do next is the implementation plans. The implementation plan is the medium term.
And in between or across this process, we also produce the position papers or several short term topics that we need to address right now.
So I cannot tell you that the situation right now is this one, because it's always a moving window. It tries to follow what is needed from the industry side, from the implementation side. And that is probably one of the main advantages. But one of main challenges at the same time, because one of the things that we normally feel is that it's difficult to synchronize the cycle of funding in the investment with the cycle of implementation. And this is something that I think from the European perspective, we also need to learn to understand better and to work out better.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: And so what feedback are you getting from the industry at this time?
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Well, first of all, thank you for that question. It's a very critical one. I come from the industry myself, so I kind of complain sometimes about that because I used to say that innovation without implementation is useless.
So every single euro that you put there for innovation should translate into something meaningful for the industry implementation. And what we realized during this process of 10 year roadmap is that the way we measure this capability of translating innovation to implementation right now is probably not the best one. We, we use a thing that is called trl, Technological Readiness level.
And I think it's a good indicator, but it's short because it doesn't matter the readiness when it comes to the market side of the thing, also the business side of the thing, also the sovereignty of Europe on that particular technology or solution. So we need to bring something that is more kind of a compound of different indicators that allow us to, given each different use case, understand what is the most appropriate level of technology that we have out there and that we can implement.
This is, I think that's something that we need to understand not only as DSOs or TSOs or universities. Also the European Commission needs to understand that because these TRLs are so well understood that changing the mindset, it's a task on itself.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: So at what level of TRL does etipsnet work then?
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Well, my wishful thinking would be from, I would say three probably to nine, which is the one that is close to the implementation.
Why is that? Because given that we work on the long, medium and short term, we should take care of fundamental research.
And that goes back to the 3, 4, 5 level. Then we should look in the medium term, 5, 6, 7 and then 8, 9 for the near term.
But even having something at 9 doesn't mean that the market is ready to take over.
And that is probably what we need to solve in this equation, is to understand what is really in between.
The fact that we have something that is trla9 and nobody is implementing it.
And that is crucial for Europe because Europe puts a lot of effort and money into these horizon calls and these funding mechanisms. And in the end, if you translate these euros into concrete things that give final benefits to consumers, then I don't have the figures, but I would say that at least 80 to 90% of the value is going to be lost somewhere in the process.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: And can you point to any specific technological research areas and gaps?
[00:07:13] Speaker A: You mean right now? Yes, well, yes, I think on one side, to integrate, maybe we start with the TSOs and the offshore wind there, I think we need to find ways to integrate this offshore into the networks. Then when it comes to transportation, you see the problem like in Germany, you see that you have a lot of wind in the north, a lot of sun in the south, and then you have a problem struggling for moving from one side to the other.
So the fact that we have grids that are designed in the kind of top down approach puts a lot of limitations because now we have a distributed system and this system kind of brings energy from every different single origin. I mean everything medium voltage, low voltage, high voltage, very high voltage.
And the way we designed the system some decades ago is not fit for this kind of system. So on your priorities, I will say that making sure that we collect all the energy that is coming into the grid without disturbing the power quality, and also making sure that we move this energy from one point to the other. It's one of the challenges making sure that we bring together on the same location. And that is really a priority right now. The same location, the generation, the demand and the infrastructure. It's a priority. I give you an example. In my country, my own country, the past government, left government, starts something that the right government, now the right wing government, is still pursuing, which is about the special zones where they put together all of these data centers, wind generation and infrastructure. And this puts a lot of focus and everyone knows what to do. And with this in mind, I think it's easier to achieve the goals.
Other priority is also the consumer participation, flexibility. I think we have the idea that flexibility is a kind of panacea that will solve all the issues that we have without this imbalance between the generation and demand.
I think flexibility is very important because in the end, if you have an electric vehicle that is stored there at home, you are not making use of it, and you have a battery that is fully charged, then probably you can do something about that.
If you have a panel on your rooftop and you are only consuming energy at nighttime, you should do something with your energy. And that is where energy communities come in. So you see, there are a lot of combinations and we should learn now to make sure that whatever the market decides is aligned with the system needs. And this is where the tricky thing starts.
And with that said, I would say that flexibility in my understanding is very important, not because of the potential that it's going to release in terms of grid management, but as a means to make sure that consumers understand what is being part of the energy transition, what is their responsible way of behaving that will benefit their own system, that in the end they are going to pay. So it's a way of making sure that the dots are connected.
And this is where I would put also some priority. Okay.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: And a significant piece of work of earlier this year was the AI roadmap and what was the sort of thinking behind that and the main findings.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: I think you are referring to the paper that we wrote, the European Commission.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Well, making a long story short, the Commission now is working on digitalization and AI roadmap for the energy sector. It's very important piece of work that is going to be released next quarter 2026. The first quarter 26.
Late in 2024, we decided in Ethicsnet that we would like to work on the AI topic. And it happened that at the same time the Commission also asked us if we could think about the position, strategic position paper on the impact of AI in the energy sector. I think this combination was the motivation, the driver for this to go forward.
And what we decided to do was, in my opinion, a very interesting piece of paper because for the first time in a single paper, you can see from the policy context towards the real implementation and the impact on the final consumers.
So we went from policy to regulation to technology, to use cases, and then to the roadmap. And again, the roadmap is a long, medium and short term, although in this case long term, when it comes to AI, for us, it's three, five years maximum. Because the pace of AI development is not the same as the other technologies.
Why is it important? Because in the end, we try to put ourselves in the shoes of the different actors, the different stakeholders, and understand what can we do with AI so that we can accelerate the energy transition, we can bring more independence when it comes to Europe. And that is the crucial point, because AI Europe is nowhere to be seen when it comes to AI, apart from a few examples. I mean, in technology and for us was important to understand what was the state of play. And we realized that there are good things in Europe. And I must stress this. So Europe is very good at defining the rules. So when you look to the AA Act, I think we have a very good piece of work that was worked out by the European, the institutions and also by the stakeholders. At the same time, there's a tension there because whenever you have a lot of rules, then you are to a certain extent struggling a little bit with the pace of innovation. And we need to also know how to deal with that. But if we look back to our European values as citizens, I think it's good that we know that our data, our concerns are in good hands. And that is where I see the benefits of, of having this AI Act.
But coming back to the implementation, I think, okay, now that we have that in place, I think we need to find our own way. I think I also mentioned this during this conference more than once, that we should not copy past what the US is doing or China is doing. I think we should find our own way, having this context, very good context, of taking care of privacy, data, consumer protection, but then looking at the real needs that we have from the process side, from the use cases side, and create this kind of specific models that we can make distributed across the network, across the system, and then kind of organize the system together based on AI agents. That will allow us to coordinate very well the data privacy, the security, the security of the system, the participation of consumers, and participation of all actors in this.
But let's see, I mean, I've been discussing this. I'm looking forward also for the result of this AI and digitalization roadmap. I know that commission already mentioned to this. I'm not publicizing the work. I mean, the commission told us that they are using a lot. Our report for us is something that is very good because we are putting our best effort there on this, but we are still waiting. Meanwhile, we are doing our own stuff and we expect that everything is going to be aligned in the end.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: And I think you've been involved with Etipsnet for probably a significant part of its history, 10 years. And can you reflect on its achievements?
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Myself, I, myself, I've been mostly involved during the last three years, I would say as vice chair and chair of the etpsnet platform. I was already connected to that, but through other initiatives.
But I know the story from the very beginning of ethicsnet and it's true that we are about to celebrate our 10th anniversary.
And what I can say is that as a platform, as a community of good people that are willing to give for free their time to discuss the important topics of our system, it's very good.
At the same time, for me, it's a little bit strange that you, that you need to rely on a bunch of good guys to write down something that is relevant for our system when we spend a lot of money in very important things. So, I mean, something is not probably right there if we are brutally honest on this, but going to the positive side, and I always like to stay on the positive side of the thing, I think that we have their own, all stakeholders, apart from the regulators, that I would like to see more there. But if we not consider the regulators, I think we have the good people there to need to discuss the things. These are people very committed to work hard on these papers. We see that commission is relying more and more on platforms like etpsnet to get almost an immediate reaction, like testing the waters, like we say normally general terms, to see how this is going to have an impact when they are thinking about a new policy and a new guideline. And for us, it's also good because give us an upfront position also to voice or to make some kind of advocacy in good sense of what are the needs of the system for the next period of time and do you
[00:16:41] Speaker B: see it evolving differently in the years ahead?
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Well, I think it's a tricky question if you ask me, Luis. If I see it, I would like to see it.
If you ask me in concrete terms if this is going to evolve a lot, I'm not sure. I think that the mandate of ethypsnet is mostly to define the priorities for research and innovation for the next years. So this is more or less aligned with the cycle of funding mechanisms coming from the European Union, and this is the priority. On top of that, we also try to do this short term approach, like answer to consultations, preparing some brief position papers on this topic and that.
But in the end, the main core activity of EthicsNet is that one.
And if we want to do more, I think it's also important that we acknowledge that we need to.
For me, it's like a little bit like soccer, like football.
You can have these good guys that, I mean, that go together Saturday night and have a play together football, and they have some beers after. And then you can have a professional team that has a very tight schedule and they are professionals on what they do.
And with that they can achieve a lot. And I think we are more or less in between, I would say, with the good guys that go together for some beers, that think about important topics, that are very serious on that. But in the end they are not professionals because the framework that they have in place does not allow that kind of professionalism that I would see as almost mandatory if we want to extract more value from the etipsnet. So to make it simpler, the capabilities are there, the framework is there, but I mean, we need to become professionals on that.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Okay, good. Well, thank you very much for your insights, Luis, and for more insights, join the Inlet community.
