BRIDGE is a European Commission initiative which unites Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe Smart Grid, Energy Storage, Islands, and Digitalisation Projects to create a structured view of cross-cutting issues which are encountered in the demonstration projects and may constitute an obstacle to innovation. The BRIDGE process fosters continuous knowledge sharing amongst projects thus allowing them to deliver conclusions and recommendations about the future exploitation of the project results, with a single voice, through four different Working Groups representing the main areas of interest: Data Management, Business Models, Regulations and Consumer and Citizen engagement. OMEGA-X is very active in all of the 4 working groups and therefore multiple representatives from OMEGA-X participated in this assembly.
The event started with an introduction of DG ENER‘s Head of Unit, Mr. Vincent Berrutto, who introduced the session on policy updates. This session includes dissertations from members of diverse DG ENER Units, covering aspects related to the EU Grid Action Plan, the recent regulatory developments on demand response, and the Net-Zero Industry Act.
After this introduction the working group chairs shared the most outstanding achievements, learnings andKey Exploitable Results of the 2023-2024 period in the Regulation, Business Model, Data Management and Consumer and Citizen Engagement fronts.
Upon holding joint exercises to find out the BRIDGE members opinions about topics to deal with in the upcoming period, the kind of adjustment they would like to see in organizational aspects, how to deal with the latest policy developments in energy, or the best practices that should be replicated and maintained in the future, the time came to put the spotlight on other initiatives. To this extent, input from ETIP SNET and ISGAN, AIT was offered.
Once finished, there was the chance to hold a networking event that helped to foster and increase cooperation among BRIDGE members involved in diverse projects or initiatives.
The second day of the event began with some new updates on policies, from both DG CNECT and DG ENER. This time, the focus fell on the Data Act, the European AI Innovation Package, and the new Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan for Europe. OMEGA-X will comply with those policies and aims to have a strong presence on events related to the latter, showing how its interoperability capabilities can imply a push to the SET context.
Then the time came to present the BRIDGE Use Cases repository and agree on upcoming collaborations and split the group to hold sessions where thorough Working Groups discussions happened, showcasing their annual activity reports, recapping next year’s objectives, and refreshing their workplans. OMEGA-X representatives shared the project point of views and had a say on how it could be interesting to add new actions to some of them fully devoted to data spaces.
Once this exercise finished, the WG Chairs shared with the whole BRIDGE group the relevant outcomes and the Commission representative shared his feedback on them. The BRIDGE General Assembly came to an end with a set of concluding remarks and next steps. OMEGA-X celebrates its participation in this fruitful event and is eager to continue sharing its findings with the BRIDGE initiative and help to pave the EC’s way forward.