The Smart Energy Standards Group (SESG) has been initiated by the European Information Technologies Certification Institute in 2019 upon a cooperation with the European Solar Network.

The SESG aims at technical standards drafting and development towards increasing rate of smart solar energy deployment and its integration with buildings, transport infrastructure and industry. The smart energy standards employ Artificial Intelligence in fields such as renewable energy management and grid integration.

The EITCI SESG promotes cooperation towards implementation of R&D projects, technological development and deployments focused on defining, supporting and disseminating of smart energy technology standards augmented by information processing and artificial intelligence. The applicative potential of smart energy technologies are expected to revolutionize energy industry in general and support transition to the clean energy worldwide. The support of smart energy standards specifications in areas such as smart PV, smart grids, smart metering, AI will lead to a faster creation, development, adoption and commercialization of such standards by the international Standards Developing Organizations leading to a faster uptake of smart energy technologies. This is especially important in the context of the European Green Deal policy and mitigation of the climate change.

Participation in the EITCI SESG activities as a Member does not involve any fees. Upon specifications and standards definition contribution, as well as related projects implementation you may however engage in technical activities with an adequate remuneration. As the EITCI SESG Member you are also entitled to a full General Membership in the EITCI Institute with the annual member fee waived. All EITCI Smart Energy Standards Group Members are also EITCI Institute's General Members.

Smart Energy Standards Group has been initiated and coordinated by Agnieszka Rządkowska, Chair of the European Solar Network, Board Member of ISES and EU Clean Energy Researcher at University of Wrocław. In 2021 EITCI SESG has been awarded funding in the H2020 StandICT programme for ICT standardization in smart grids and smart energy sector concerning artificial intelligence applications in smart PV, which resulted in the SESG Smart PV Workgroup formation (with H2020 StandICT support througout 2022).

Consult the list of Members of the EITCI SESG group (last updated on 4th September 2024). The up-to-date listing of the Members can be found at EITCI SESG LinkedIn Group.

Accordingly with the EU Rolling-Plan 2020 ICT standards for smart energy are needed to cover smart grid management, grid-balancing and interfacing with millions of new renewable sources in particular optimizing efficiency in complex processes of renewable energy systems control. These standards mainly focus on uniform communication and cybersecurity protocols (providing plug-and-play compatibility for new devices entering the grid, from renewable sources to electric cars or other smart devices and IoT enhancing the smart homes, buildings and cities of the future).

The current dynamic EU energy transformation is driven by two main factors:

1. The energy systems becoming clean (i.e. environmentally neutral accordingly with goals of the EU climate and energy framework and the European Green Deal policy) based on renewable and consumer-centric sources, primarily in form of solar power,
2. The ongoing digital/smart transformation of the energy and electrical grid sectors.

The first factor is due to the EU energy policy encouraging stakeholders to adapt to an increasing number of means of generating electricity from a variety of renewable energy sources with minimizing environmental impact (clean energy transformation). The key policy milestones for this transformation are the EU's energy and climate targets for 2030 which emphasize Europe's leading role in the global fight against climate change. These 2030 EU climate and energy framework targets include at least 40% EU domestic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 (with an increased ambition to 55% reduction as a part of the European Green Deal of September 2020), at least 32% share of renewable energy consumed in the EU, at least 32,5% improvement of energy efficiency and an electricity interconnection targeted at 15%. In this context both the PV systems and the electricity networks are of key importance. In 2012 electricity represented 22% of the EU's energy consumption with renewables accounting for a share of 24% of gross production (with ca. 3% increase on 2011, while reaching as high as 30.2% in 2016 and expected to grow up to 55% in 2030, correspondingly with the 2030 energy and climate goals and the Paris Agreement). Furthermore the consumer position in the energy value chain has considerably changed. The energy consumer can now easily become a prosumer, deploying grid-connected renewable energy source (e.g. a PV system), feeding the surplus of the generated energy into the utility grid. For this end with smart optimization of energy efficiency the digital and energy technologies need to overlap taking advantage of most recent developments in big data enabled AI control methods, smart homes and cities applications, energy intelligent products, the IoT, 5G networks, etc. It is for a reason that the EU COVID-19 strategic response is summarized in prioritizing two pillars: the single energy market and the digital single market combined as strongly interdependent and being both critical to the policy of the EU. This is where the second factor of EU energy transformation through smart (AI assisted) digitization is pronounced.

The current proposal targets a specific sector of this outlined in-demand technical standards of smart PV systems assisted by feedback loop trained neural networks based AI. An important concept for the proposed standards is defining a common cloud-based platform specification for distributed Smart-PV operational data aggregation that will enable NN deep-learning not only on individual operative systems but also on the whole ecosystem of AI enabled Smart-PV devices (with properly addressed security and privacy issues).

If you are a professional with background in renewable energy, smart-grid management, cryptography, networking and communication, computing, modeling, artificial intelligence or in other relevant fields that may relate to smart energy standards development you are invited to join the SESG group. The group promotes cooperation in relevant workgroups towards implementation of R&D projects, technological development and deployments focused on defining, supporting and disseminating smart energy standards. The EITCI SESG activity supports the goals of the European Green Deal policy and is supporting the StandICT project upon the European Commission's Horizon 2020 program.

In order to join the EITCI Smart Energy Standards Group please submit the form below. You can also alternatively request admission with your personal LinkedIn profile at the LinkedIn EITCI SESG Group. Participating in the EITCI SESG by means of membership in the LinkedIn Group may result in missing some of the email communication. If you would like to receive all email communication regarding EITCI SESG activity please submit the form below (you can do it at any time as a SESG Member upon your participation in the LinkedIn EITCI SESG Group). Participation in the SESG does not involve any fees. Upon standards definition and projects implementation you may however engage in technical activities voluntarily or with an adequate remuneration upon availability. Additionally membering the EITCI SESG Group results with EITCI Institute's General Membership with the Membership Fees waived.

The EITCI Smart Energy Standards Group in its operational priority has first established a Work Group for smart photovoltaics standardisation. The EITCI SESG Smart-PV WG acts as a cross-SDO WG inviting members of the relevant WGs of international SDOs/SSOs to promote cooperation in scope of smart PV standards drafting and dissemination. The Smart-PV standardisation drafting process will result in open-access Reference Standards (along with their basis RFC documents) published by EITCI SESG Smart-PV WG and disseminated to other international SDOs/SSOs (some of the technically documented concepts will remain under IP protection of external parties and different competing solutions will be a part of consensus reaching process in digital energy domain and the industry stakeholders towards international standards in AI enabled smart photovoltaics).

Smart PV SESG Workgroup

The StandICT H2020 programme supported activities in initiation and coordination of an ICT reference standards development combining recent progress in AI automated management of renewable energy generated in grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems along with their operation-and-maintenance (O&M) and their smart on-grid integration control. The activity aims at supporting international standardization efforts at a higher level of abstraction for the state of the art framework standard for AI assisted smart control over PV systems in solar power plants, PV integrated industrial buildings and the prosumer residential homes PV installations. The standardization efforts in smart PV assisted by AI in Neural Network models trained on a feedback loop of operational parameters is expected to add value to already developed digital and smart energy standards and support uptake of the smart energy technologies of crucial importance for the EU climate and energy policy framework, especially in view of the recent emphasis on joining Digital and Green agendas as two major pillars for the EU COVID-19 economic recovery. The standardization activity will be hosted under EITCI SESG WG in cooperation with European Solar Network.

>> Learn more on the activities of the Smart PV Workgroup of EITCI SESG

Proceed to the EITCI Quantum Standards Group.

Return to EITCI Technology Certification.