OPENTUNITY launches to enhance DER interoperability

The OPENTUNITY project has kicked off to create a blockchain-based flexibility ecosystem with reduced interoperability barriers and favouring the use of standards.

OPENTUNITY, with funding from the Horizon Europe programme, is aimed to support grid operators, prosumers and other market players to more easily provide demand flexibility to the grid and thereby accelerate its decarbonisation.

With innovative methodologies backed by advanced, interoperable software modules, the project is focussed on eliminating data silos and establishing standards for data exchange, all with a focus on creating value for end customers

As part of its activities OPENTUNITY will evolve and integrate an energy specialised blockchain as a distributed, fast and reliable energy dataspace for data exchange and service sharing among the participants.

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OPENTUNITY (OPENing the electricity ecosystem to multiple actors in order to have a real decarbonization opporTUNITY) is coordinated by project coordinators Etra R&D and includes 17 participants and three partners from eight countries in the project consortium.

The project will include 13 demonstrations using a common underlying digital infrastructure to test hypotheses and prove value for different technology and business use cases with a common theme, i.e. that distributed energy resources, properly integrated with the grid, can create value for both end customers and energy market participants.

These demonstrations will be conducted in four different countries, Greece, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland.

They are expected to benefit some 27,000 citizens with initial estimates forecasting the potential for innovations that are unlocked to reduce energy bills by 30% for end customers and greenhouse gas emissions by 91.2MtCO2e, primarily by making distributed energy resources a core part of grid planning and operations.

Other participants include the energy companies HEDNO and the Independent Power Transmission Operator from Greece, Elektro Primorska and Elektro Ljubljana from Slovenia, Estabanell from Spain and Azienda Elettrica di Massagno from Switzerland.

Energy Web is providing the underlying digital infrastructure for data exchange and NODES’ market platform will be connected to test the feasibility and interoperability of the ecosystem setup and the potential of a flexibility market in the different test sites.

The project runs to the end of 2026 with a budget of €10.8 million (US$11.8 million), of which the EU contribution is €8.5 million.

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