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25 Mar 2024
Technology
On March 22, a workshop was held at the Bizkaia Technology Park (Zamudio) to disseminate and transfer the results of VIRTGRID “Digital technologies for function virtualisation and interoperability in Smart Grids”, bringing to a close two years of research coordinated by Tecnalia and developed in collaboration with Ingeteam Research Institute, ZIV R&D, UPV/EHU and the Basque Energy Cluster.
The event was opened by the Basque Energy Cluster, who presented the agenda, the topics that would be covered and their relationship with the previous workshop held in July 2023. Tecnalia then reviewed the project's goals and the degree of compliance of the results obtained, focusing on the work carried out on defining virtualisation architectures adapted to specific cases in substation and transformer centre scenarios, research into dynamic resource allocation algorithms and advances in cybersecurity for the remote deployment and updating of virtual components.
The project partners then went into the details of the research carried out and the results obtained: the proposals for the most suitable architecture to meet the hardware and software virtualisation needs of substations and transformer centres, taking into account the requirements of mass deployment, criticality, real time and management/monitoring; the most suitable communications technologies in virtualised environments; performance evaluation tests of virtualised logical nodes (IEC61850) and their optimisation by means of dynamic resource allocation algorithms, and cross-cutting cybersecurity technologies that ensure the isolation of virtualised applications in the same hardware environment, thereby preventing the impact caused by the exploitation of a vulnerability in a virtual application from spreading.
In addition, proofs of concept of functional use cases were presented to validate the project developments for a virtualised substation (IED protection function) and transformer centre (data concentrator) environment, using standard electronics (hardware) as a support. This work was complemented by producing test books for virtualised equipment at substations and transformer centres.
The presentations were followed by a discussion between participants on the applicability of the results to their business and possible future developments. Among other issues, beyond strictly virtualisation-related issues, concerns were raised by manufacturers about cybersecurity issues and their link to the imminent application of the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) to their products. Areas for improvement were also identified in terms of the performance of virtualised functionalities.
As far as next steps are concerned, mention was made of the importance of having a baseline architecture for substations and transformer centres, of ensuring interoperability between the equipment, of developing more robust wireless networks as a complement or alternative to wiring, of having the hardware capacity to implement cybersecurity technologies and of having full traceability of equipment behaviour and virtualised functionalities, so as to be able to detect anomalies and reproduce them.
Finally, emphasis was again put on the magnitude of the change that virtualisation will bring about in the business models of operators and manufacturers, who will have to work together to adapt their way of working and to seek a conducive regulatory framework that recognises and rewards virtualised software functionalities in a fair manner.
In addition to this workshop, individual comparison meetings were held throughout March with various distribution operators (i-DE and Unión Fenosa Distribución) and transmission operators (Elewit, the Redeia Group's technology platform), who provided their comments, assessments and points of view on the results presented by the partners, and some of their concerns about adopting and deploying these technologies.
The main result of the project in terms of technology transfer was that several of the partners collaborated with other companies in the smart grids value chain to prepare a Strategic Hazitek proposal for submission to the 2024 call, which will allow the technologies developed in the VIRTGRID project to evolve to higher levels of maturity by applying them to a number of specific use cases proposed by the manufacturers of digital products and solutions for the smart grids involved in the new project.
The VIRTGRID project is funded by the Basque Government's Department for Economic Development, Sustainability and the Environment (Elkartek 2022 programme). The consortium is coordinated by Tecnalia and also includes Ingeteam Research Institute, ZIV R&D, UPV/EHU - through its electrical engineering (GISEL) and communications engineering (TSR) departments - and the Basque Energy Cluster.
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