What is OneNet?
One Network for Europe
The project “OneNet” (One Network for Europe) is funded through the EU’s eighth Framework Programme Horizon 2020 titled “TSO – DSO Consumer: Large-scale demonstrations of innovative grid services through demand response, storage and small-scale (RES) generation” and responds to the call “Building a low-carbon, climate-resilient future (LC)”.
The scope of OneNet is to create a fully replicable and scalable architecture that enables the whole European electrical system to operate as a single system in which a variety of markets allows the universal participation of stakeholders regardless of their physical location – at every level from small consumer to large producers.
The project, led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, brings together a consortium of over 70 partners. Check out the full list here. In addition to a significant list of grid operators, the consortium also includes key IT players, leading research institutions and two European associations for grid operators, all of whom jointly provide unique expertise in support to these challenging tasks.
Background
While the electrical grid is moving from being a fully centralized to a highly decentralized system, grid operators have to change their operative business to accommodate for faster reactions and adaptive exploitation of flexibility.
The topic has been the subject of several research projects in the past and has reached a level of maturity that allows for some final considerations, and the proposal of an integrated view on grid operations.
OneNet aims at performing this critical step by creating the conditions for a new generation of grid services able to fully exploit demand response, storage and distributed generation while creating fair, transparent and open conditions for the consumer.
As a result, while creating “one network of Europe”, the project aims to build a customer-centric approach to grid operation. This ambitious vision is to be achieved by proposing new markets, products and services and by creating a unique IT architecture.
The project has also very ambitious goals aiming at creating consensus on its proposed solution far beyond the limits of the consortium partners thanks to a variety of actions including a large-scale forum (namely “GRIFOn” for discussion with the European energy community) for discussion within the international energy community.