Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek NV (VITO)

02.03.2018

VITO, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (Belgium) and member of knowledge centre EnergyVille (www.energyville.be), is the largest Flemish technological research organization with a multi-disciplinary team working on sustainable solutions for different research domains like materials, energy and environment. VITO supplies innovative and high-quality solutions, whereby large and small companies can gain a competitive advantage, and advises industry and governments on determining their policy for the future. VITO has more than 700 highly-qualified employees from various specialisms and collaborates with sector federations and their research centres, universities and other European research institutes. In 2014, VITO has a total budget of about 135 million euros.

The business unit Energy Technology focuses on “smart systems for intelligent energy networks” and
has a proven track record on research, development and demonstration projects in the field of
innovative energy technologies in general and smart grids and Renewable Energy Sources integration
in particular. The technical expertise in this unit is organized in five complementary research
domains: sustainable electrical energy devices; electrical systems; thermal systems; algorithms,
modelling and optimization; and the energy market research domain.

EnergyVille unites the research institutes KU Leuven, VITO and Imec in their research towards
renewable energy and intelligent energy systems. The respective researchers provide expertise to
industry and government in the field of intelligent energy systems in an urban environment – such as
smart grids and advanced heat networks.

EnergyVille brings research, development, training and industrial innovation together under one
name, in close cooperation with local, regional and international partners.

Main Task within the EU-SysFlex project

VITO will lead WP3 on market design and regulation, leveraging on the knowledge and expertise built
up in the research domain energy markets over the last decade. VITO will also provide it expertise in
supporting activities in WP2 (building models) and WP4 (analysis impact of flexibility solutions). The
VITO energy market research domain has a proven track record in analysing different market design
and regulatory frameworks; including country-specific frameworks in EU MS. VITO has experience in
both policy studies for European Commission as well as European research projects in the framework
of FP7 and H2020. Especially the evolvDSO project (future roles of DSOs) and ongoing SmartNet
project (TSO-DSO coordination schemes) are of relevance for EU-SysFlex. Furthermore, VITO has a lot
of knowledge on business modelling for smart grid services (including ancillary services) and
combines academic insights with applied research. Finally, this expertise is combined with top quality
mathematical modelling and simulation skills, high level of technical knowledge on power systems as
well as very deep technological research incorporated for (flexible) energy technologies (electricity
and thermal energy storage, power electronics, smart appliances, etc.).

Person in charge of the project: Helena Gerard

More info: https://vito.be/en

Contact: helena.gerard@vito.be