Europe’s ‘Data for Energy’ group kicks off

The ‘Data for Energy’ (D4E) subgroup of the European Commission’s Smart Energy Expert Group has held its first meeting.

The meeting, co-chaired by Vincent Berrutto, head of unit at DG Ener, and Max Lemke, head of unit at DG CNECT, focussed on aspects of data exchange to enable the energy transition in order to provide input to some of the priorities the group should tackle.

The aim of the subgroup is to bring together the Commission, member states and relevant public and private stakeholders to contribute to building the European framework for sharing energy-related data.

As such the group is expected to help strengthen coordination on energy sector data exchanges at the EU level, defining the driving principles and ensuring consistency across different data-sharing priorities and initiatives and ultimately towards achieving the digital transformation of the energy system and the realisation of a European energy data space.

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Among the day’s outcomes was a panel on demand-side flexibility with bottlenecks identified by Helena Gerard, senior researcher at Vito/EnergyVille. These included market fragmentation due to the different maturities of the energy and flexibility markets and allocations of roles and responsibilities between the regulated and non-regulated domains.

Data quality was also reported as an underestimated problem.

Some suggestions for the D4E group mentioned by Gerard are that discussions on data exchange should always start with asking the “what” and “why” of the data and that national solutions should always consider the implications for further European harmonisation

Consumer empowerment and cybersecurity

The other two subgroups of the Smart Energy Expert Group are on consumer empowerment and protection and cybersecurity.

The consumer empowerment and protection subgroup will work on the topic within the framework of the consumer empowerment project and the practical implementation of provisions related to active participation of consumers.

The intention is to build on the work and experience of the forerunner Smart Grids Task Force’s expert group on consumer issues.

The cybersecurity subgroup is intended to assist the Commission in the preparation and implementation of cybersecurity legislation and relevant areas of research as well in monitoring of cybersecurity events and the exchange of information and best practices.

At the inaugural Smart Energy Expert Group meeting on 9 October, immediate priorities identified include advancing data exchange frameworks to optimise energy system flexibility and developing high-level use cases for energy data exchanges in line with the Green Deal and the Digital Decade.

Another is addressing cybersecurity concerns for energy systems and ensuring robust consumer protection frameworks.