The energy policies implemented in recent years have provided, at a national level, a substantial spread of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) which represent a pivotal asset for the decarbonisation of the energy system. The goals to increase the shares from RES on total energy consumption (electricity generation, thermal generation and transport) are essential to achieve the targets of the PNIEC and the Long Term Strategy. In the current context, innovative and advanced control and management logics of the electricity distribution networks are mandatory to enable higher shares of RES  from RES through a coordinated use of the distributed resources. In these premises, the research support actions in the main European countries have been oriented, in the last decade, towards the financing of research and development projects for the modernization and smartization of electricity grids. A lower level of attention was instead given to thermal networks and even more to energy networks which integrate multiple vectors (electrical-thermal) and interconnected grids. However, the physical experimentation of these models on several real microgrids is essential because it allows experiencing operational situations today only partially feasible in a real environment due to high cost, technical regulations (not always adequate) and the regulatory framework in evolution. To provide a complete analysis, physical microgrids need also to be virtually interconnected, through real-time numerical simulations, to system components or areas (e.g., distribution grid portions) which cannot be implemented into the experimental environmental. In this context, the availability of demonstrators, microgrid size and multi-vector based, permit to investigate the problems related to the design, construction, and management of integrated energy networks, and validate the proposed technological and system solutions. 

MISSION Smart Grid Project aims to bring the multi-vector distributed energy systems from a TRL 4 (technology validated in the laboratory) to a final TRL 7-8 (demonstration in an operating environment of a complex and qualified system) through the construction of two experimental microgrids, respectively at the ENEA Research Center in Portici and other two RSE Centers located in Milan and Piacenza.

Figure 1 – Panning shoot of the Smart Energy Microgrid to realize at the ENEA Research Center in Portici

Figure 2 – Panning shoot of the RSE demonstrator to be realized in the two centers in Milan and Piacenza