The latest session of the Smart Grids Sector Forum, coordinated by i-DE, was held online on 6 November last. The vision and future strategy outlined by i-DE included the overall investment of €75,000 million earmarked for the Iberdrola Growth Plan, of which €27,000 million will go to decarbonising the grids over the 2020-2025 period. i-DE also put forward the recent advances in Bidelek 4.0 and their new Centre for Excellence in Smart Grids, the Global Smartgrid Innovation Hub, to be located in Larraskitu and rolled out in 2021.

ACE ran through the keys points of two of the main aid instruments for financial recovery: the EU Next Generation Fund and the European Commission's European Green Deal action plan. This was followed by a proposal to create a smart grid hub within the framework of the Basque Digital Innovation Hub - driven by SPRI - and an outline of the progress of the Working Group on Digital Business Models for Electricity Grids, set up in early 2020.

The programme of the event read as follows:

09:00 Welcome and introduction

09:05 Review of the impact of COVID-19 and actions taken in the framework of the Cluster (ACE)

09:35 i-DE's vision and strategies going forward (i-DE)

09:45 Participant evaluation and contributions

10:15 Recovery Aid: European Green Deal call and Next Generation EU (ACE)

10:45 Review of initiatives and projects currently under way

• Progress on Bidelek 4.0 and Global Smartgrids Innovation Hub (i-DE)
• Basque Digital Innovation Hub (ACE, SPRI)
• Working Group on Digital Business Models for Electricity Grids (ACE)

11:30 End of session

The session was attended by 46 sector representatives. The presentations are available to members here.