Energy grids & storage
From smart grids to the EnerNet
A HIGH-GROWTH MARKET
The growing proportion of renewables in the energy mix has contributed to disrupting electricity grid operations. The issues that must be addressed to ensure the smooth integration of renewables into the grid are technical and non-technical in nature. First, there are technical hurdles to getting renewable energy to where it is needed, when it is needed. The solutions, driven by digital technology, will have to make the grid more flexible, reliable, and robust. And non-technical challenges like user behavior, new services, new business models, new regulations, and the emergence of the prosumer, will also have to be addressed. The smart grid market offers high growth potential and will create industrial jobs in the region.
Energy storage will play a major role in countering the effects of intermittent renewable energy production by providing the buffer necessary to effectively match supply with demand. Different storage technologies do exist—depending on capacity, storage duration, and discharge cycle times—and huge advances have been made in the past several years.
Both technologies and user habits are changing profoundly.
Tenerrdis focuses on the following innovations in energy storage:
- New grid infrastructures
- Life-sized smart-grid demonstrators combining residential and commercial properties
- New business models
- New applications for DC micro grid and electric mobility technologies
- New manufacturing processes for more efficiently dimensioned products to meet energy efficiency requirements
- EnerNet
- Storage (batteries, fuel cells) integration and use
- Multi-energy grids and grid interconnections (gas, electricity, heat)
Tenerrdis’ energy grid and storage activities unite “traditional” gas and electric utility companies, world-class research laboratories, SMBs specializing in grid technologies, and, more generally, companies specializing in information and communication technologies.
Key figures
103Tenerrdis members
42collaborative R&D projects and prototypes/demonstrator systems
€521 milliontotal R&D spending
Did you know…
Tenerrdis was a participant in the Smart Electricity Grid Roadmap, a component of France’s national industrial renewal policy.