The digitalization of the energy system is a key element of the energy transition. In October 2022, the European Commission released the Digitalization of Energy Action Plan which gives guidelines on how to achieve this goal. No matter which approaches we take, digitalization is a complex process that has to be anyway implemented in a short time to really support the overarching goal of decarbonization. For this reason, cooperation is critical both on the research side and on the business side.
The digitalization of the energy system is a key element of the energy transition. In October 2022, the European Commission released the Digitalization of Energy Action Plan which gives guidelines on how to achieve this goal. No matter which approaches we take, digitalization is a complex process that has to be anyway implemented in a short time to really support the overarching goal of decarbonization. For this reason, cooperation is critical both on the research side and on the business side.
The talk of Prof. Monti focused on the element of cooperation that both in research and in the business sector can be implemented when it comes to data and software sharing.
More in particular the presentation deep-dived in the role of open source as a way to speed up the development of the large set of SW that should drive the power grid of the future.
For a long time, open source has been considered an approach valid only for research but not for commercial applications. Other sectors proved this point to be wrong. Open source is a mechanism of cooperation that brings high-quality products and incredible savings. The key point is the definition of a governance model. The energy sector recently started moving in this direction and concrete examples are already showing the benefits.
The Linux Foundation Energy is a concrete example in this direction. The talk showed in particular how, with the help of the work in the Foundation, a research project called SOGNO emerged to become a real product with application in the digitalization of the grid in Rome. Similar experiences of cooperation are possible in the research arena. CRESYM is a new association that brings together industry and academia for the joint development of open-source software in the field of modeling and simulation of power grids. These concrete examples show that cooperation is possible and it is actually key to speed up the process of digitalization in Europe.
