In the scope of undergoing R&D activity, Efacec Automation is strongly involved in European FP7 projects. The SmartC2Net project is a good example.

The SmartC2Net is a R&D project for smart control of energy distribution grids, it aims to develop and implement robust solutions that enable Smart Grid operation on top of heterogeneous off-the-shelf communication infrastructures with varying properties.

Currently, the project is on the 16^th month of its lifecycle and presents substantial developments, according to the project plan. Namely, the public deliverables are available at the project website, several publications at the journals articles and conferences were concluded, architectures for use cases were defined, and other projects for collaboration were selected. It should be mentioned that Efacec is the leader of the Workpackage responsible for the dissemination activities.

Project partners have already organized three plenary meetings gathering all partners of the consortium. The first plenary meeting and general assembly was held in Aalborg, Denmark and the second was in Porto, hosted by Efacec. The last meeting took place last March in Dortmund, Germany. Periodic teleconferences are frequently scheduled to assess the work package status, to allow technical information exchange, to prepare next activity steps, among others.

This January, the review meeting took place in Brussels with the EU project officer and an experts panel, in order to report the first period of project activities and assess its execution. The meetings went very well; the project progress had the global assessment as good progress, meaning that the project has achieved most of its objectives and technical goals for the period under evaluation.

Regarding Efacec Automation activities, we are leading several tasks and assume the responsibility of coordinating activities in two Workpackages (WP4 – Adaptive Grid Controls and WP7 – Dissemination and Exploitation). Also, several products and solutions are being integrated on the project so that new advanced functionalities can be built on top of those platforms. In the scope of cooperation and knowledge exchange one UC 500, one G Smart and two M Box will be installed at the laboratories of project partners, namely at the Aalborg University in Denmark and two M Box units and one G Smart unit will be integrated in FTW Forschungszentrum Telekommunikation Wien gmbh in Austria.

As for the future actions, an Expert Advisory Board meeting is scheduled for this May. The EAB is composed by technical experts with high-level distribution grid system perspective, gives input to requirements and use-case description, support of dissemination and exploitation, feedback on project approaches and project results, as well as participates in review processes for selected technical deliverables.

For more information about the project and to follow all the news, please visit the project website: http://www.smartc2net.eu/.