Energy Data Space

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Deliverables

• (Technical) infrastructures for the common European Energy Data Space covering all the building blocks mentioned above and addressing the identified use cases.
• Suitable business models that ensure the maintenance and upscaling of the common European energy data space beyond the lifetime of the project and the accessibility of the federated date.
• Governance system for the common European energy data space.
• Biannual reports on connections between relevant local and national data ecosystems and initiatives at EU level, as well as with other sectoral data spaces.
• Guidance/training documents to involve stakeholders in sharing data.
• Once the data space is operational, regular reports on usage data and maintenance.

The objective is to deploy a reliable and secure common European data space for energy announced in the European Strategy for Data¹ and the EU Action plan on digitalising the energy system.² This data space will broaden access to data needed to develop innovative energy services that will help to balance and optimise the electricity grids and improve the energy efficiency of the built environment. It will play a key role in increasing the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources and thus advancing towards the goals set by the ‘Fit for 55’ package and the RePowerEU plan.

The energy data space will be closely linked to other sector-specific data spaces (e.g. mobility and smart communities) and will thus enable actors from various sectors such as building automation and electro-mobility to actively participate in the energy market, deliver energy services, and promote sector integration (the linking of the various energy carriers - electricity, heat, cold, gas, solid and liquid fuels - with each other and with the end-use sectors, such as buildings, transport or industry). This will allow them to contribute to the efficient use of energy, boost the use of renewables, and support the integration, collaboration and information exchange between different sectors as well as create new business opportunities.

1. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/strategy-data

2. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Digitalising the energy system - EU action plan, COM(2022) 552 final.

Proposal(s) should foresee the deployment of the first version of a common European energy data space and its infrastructure on the basis of the blueprint elaborated under ongoing preparatory actions (see below). Any additional existing deployments (federated data sources or data hubs) in the Member States or at European level, should be considered and integrated as far as possible.

Specifically, proposals under this action should address:

• Deployment of a first version of a common European energy data space at scale (in at least 10 Member States) and identification and piloting of at least five use cases (e.g., distributed energy resources (DER) management, provision of flexibility services for electricity grids (e.g., grid balancing, congestion management, voltage control) based on digitally-enabled energy assets, smart and bi-directional electric vehicle (EV) charging (which could include dynamic energy optimization of large EV fleets, etc.) addressing at least two of the three policy priorities (high level use cases described in the EU Action plan on digitalising the energy system).
• Use a commonly agreed reference architecture, replicable and scalable building blocks, e.g., data models and formats, data exchange APIs, data provenance and traceability, metadata and service discovery, identity management / identification and authentication, data access and usage control arrangements, business agreements, operational agreements, governance agreements. In particular regarding data interoperability arrangements, the data space should be based on agreed minimal interoperability mechanisms that will align energy relevant key stakeholders on a set of minimal sufficient capabilities needed to achieve interoperability of data, systems and services between the key players of the energy value chains at all levels (European, national and local). Interoperability with other data spaces (e.g. mobility or smart communities' data space), on the appropriate level, shall be considered from the outset, whenever possible.
• Consider a complete set of common open standards, including semantic standards such as SAREF, ontology and data interoperability, both domain-specific and cross-cutting.
• Define suitable business models with the objective to ensure financial sustainability of the energy data space beyond the end of the project.
• Implement a governance system for overseeing the operations of the energy data space according to the defined business models.

The deployment of the energy data space will build on previous actions, in so far as possible, supported under the Horizon Europe programme and should leverage existing national or regional efforts. The selected proposal(s) will use, in so far as possible and when available, the smart cloud-to-edge middleware platform Simpl.³ They will also work in close partnership with the Data Spaces Support Centre in order to ensure alignment with the rest of the ecosystem of data spaces implemented with the support of Digital Europe Programme, in particular in view of a data spaces reference architecture, common building blocks, toolboxes and standards; and data governance models. Right from the outset, the awarded proposal(s) is/are expected to work towards achieving financial sustainability by the conclusion of the action and consider relevant actions in this respect. Relevant stakeholders to implement this action are all entities which have an active role in managing energy system operations and in energy markets, e.g. an increasing share of SME/midcaps of providers of energy services to consumers (data users) as well as all entities which conclude data agreement(s) in view of providing flexibility services. The active participation of data providers and users from the project's inception is highly recommended since it will ensure that the data space is designed and structured to meet their needs, making the data space more relevant and leading to increased adoption rates and a stronger sense of ownership of data providers and users by the end of the project’s runtime.

3.Simpl: cloud-to-edge federations and data spaces made simple (updated August 2023) | Shaping Europe’s digital future (europa.eu)