PANTERA (PAN European Technology Energy Research Approach) has received €4m in EU Horizon 2020 funding to deliver a multi-dimensional platform of information, tools and training to help accelerate Research and Innovation (R&I) in the area of smart grids to shape the energy systems of the future.
Martin O’Connell, EU Programme Officer at Tyndall National Institute, welcomed the launch, “From an Irish perspective, the implementation of PANTERA is timely as the power system in Ireland is fundamentally changing and the outcomes of PANTERA will help to identify barriers and accelerate R&I activities as Ireland moves to integrate the all-island electricity market (i-SEM) with European electricity markets”.
Locally, the programme will be led by Shafi Khadem from the International Energy Research Centre (IERC) at Tyndall. Shafi will lead activities in identifying and aligning the current smart grid R&I status with current regulations and standards and identifying the key challenges to accelerate these activities. The research will have specific emphasis on the EU-28 countries which currently spend less than 5% of the available R&I funds, including Ireland.
Together the PANTERA team will formalise a governance structure which will be capable of delivering the targeted objectives and bringing together, under the same umbrella, all active entities and stakeholders in the field of smart grids / storage and local energy systems to leverage synergies and maximise benefits.
PANTERA will deliver:
- Ready-made tools to facilitate the collection of real data and results from on-going projects
- A useful and shareable data repository which is capable of supporting case studies of exploitable results, scenario building and local energy system analysis
- Dedicated workshops to facilitate exchanges of experience and capacities between members of the R&I community in collaboration with on-going activities aiming to wider participation, strengthen objectives and extent impact of achieved results.
PANTERA is coordinated by University of Cyprus (FOSS) and is also comprised of European Distributed Energy Resources Laboratories e.V (DE), RSE SPA (It), SINTEF (No), SUITE5 (Cy), University College Cork-IERC (IE), University College Dublin (IE), Technical University of Sofia (BG). The project kicked off in January 2019 and will continue until December 2022.