ECS4DRES project launches to advance monitoring and control of DERs in Europe

The ECS4DRES project has been launched in Europe with co-funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe and the German federal government.

The Electronic Components and Systems for Flexible, Coordinated and Resilient Distributed Renewable Energy Systems (ECS4DRES) project is aimed to strengthen the reliability, safety and resilience of distributed renewable energy systems with the development of advanced monitoring and control technologies.

These are proposed to incorporate integrated sensors with energy harvesting functions capable of different types of detection for safety and monitoring of energy transfers.

The project is also planned to achieve interoperable and low latency communication systems along with algorithms, AI tools and methods to enable the widespread interconnection, monitoring and management of a large number of distributed systems, subsystems and components.

Have you read?
California grid tech sandbox launched to help integrate DERs
FEVER Project: Unlocking flexibility in a decentralized energy future

With this optimal energy management between sources, loads and storages should be realised to improve power quality and to enable resilient system operation.

These innovations will then be validated in a set of five relevant use cases and demonstrators.

Among the specific innovation activities highlighted are the realisation of a multi-modal energy hub, the exploitation of renewable energy sources realised by means of dedicated high efficiency power electronics converters and the realisation of multi-modal energy storage devices.

Sophisticated energy management algorithms are planned to enable local balancing between energy production, storage and use.

The ECS4DRES project, which kicked off on 1 July, is a three-year initiative with a total cost of €27.9 million (US$30 million).

It is being coordinated by German semiconductor developer Infineon Technologies and involves a total of 33 partners from Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Slovakia.

The project’s results are expected to generate a wide range of scientific, technological, economic, environmental and societal impacts, meeting the needs of OEMs, DSOs, grid operators, EV charging station aggregators, energy communities, end customers and academia.