The event, organised as part of European project "InteGrid", which is led by EDP Distribuição and has INESC TEC as the scientific coordinator, brought together more than 100 people to discuss the challenges faced by the project and the technologies that are being developed.

The opening session of the "InteGrid Day" was carried out by Manuel Matos, coordinator of the Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES) of INESC TEC. Soon after, Ricardo Bessa, researcher at CPES and technical coordinator of the project, presented a series of challenges for the coming years, namely the predictive management of distribution networks, new business models based on the active management of electricity consumption and the creation of an ecosystem for new energy services based on data collected by smart meters. Afterwards, Bessa moderated a panel on the theme composed of Ferreira Pinto and José Ribeiro da Silva of EDP Distribuição, Miguel Morgado of DNV GL and Rita Alves of Águas do Tejo Atlântico.

This was followed by the panel on technology in smart grids, moderated by EDP Distribuição's Pedro Godinho Matos, which included the following speakers: Gordon Paton of General Electrics, Efstratios Pelekidis of SAP, André Madureira of INESC TEC, Manuel Pio Silva of CNET and Ricardo Fernandes of EDP. The discussion focused on issues such as big data management, advanced tools for the management of the electrical grid and the integration of new technologies.

In between panels, there was room to visit the stands that GE, INESC TEC and SAP set up for the event. GE introduced the Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS). INESC TEC presented a video with some of the artificial intelligence technologies that it is developing for the project together with Águas do Tejo Atlântico. It also demonstrated the domestic consumption manager (developed under the ANYPLACE project) and the inverters for photovoltaic production and storage that are part of the Laboratory of Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles of INESC TEC. SAP presented the different products for managing and extracting knowledge from large volumes of data.

After the visit to the stands, there was room to assess the current state of the project before the presentation of the InteGrid use cases, which were divided into four business areas: distribution network operation (medium and low voltage), network-market interface (hub), final consumer of electricity, and energy services.

Jorge Moreira of EDP Distribuição carried out the wrap-up of the session, highlighting the role of the distribution network operator as a facilitator of new business models, the need for intelligent management of the distribution network in order to maximise the integration of renewable-based electricity production and the opportunities generated by increasing the flexibility in the consumption of the domestic and industrial sectors. The closing session was carried out by Ângelo Sarmento, Member of the Board of Directors of EDP Distribuição.

Until 2020, the InteGrid project will get three European countries to increase the intelligence of their electricity grids. It is in this sense that more than 50 people from 14 institutions in eight European countries have about 15 million euros to work on the project, which will install five demonstrators of intelligent electricity grids - three in Portugal, one in Sweden and one in Slovenia.

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC and UP-FEUP.