UBITECH ENERGY hosts the kick-off meeting (September 21 & 22, 2023) in Brussels, Belgium of the D-HYDROFLEX Innovation Action, officially started on September 1st, 2023. The project is funded by the European Commission (Grant Agreement No. 101122357) and spans on the period September 2023 – August 2026. The D-HYDROFLEX project will advance excellence in research on digital technology for hydropower paving the way towards more efficient, more sustainable, and more competitive hydropower plants in modern power markets.
D-HYDROFLEX will develop a toolkit for digitally ‘renovating’ the existing hydroelectric power plants based on sensors, digital twins, AI algorithms, hybridization modelling (power-to-hydrogen), cloud-edge computing and image processing. The core pillars of the project will be: (i) digitalization, (i.e., digital twins for hydro dams and machinery, weather and flow forecasts, cyber-resilience), (ii) flexibility, (i.e., coordination with hydrogen, storage and VPP operation) and (iii) sustainability, (i.e., biodiversity environmental issues). Validation will take place in real hydro plants of EDF (France), TEE (Poland), PPC (Greece), TASGA (Spain) and INTEX (Romania), covering different geographical areas of Europe.
Within D-HYDROFLEX, UBITECH ENERGY has the scientific and technical lead. In particular, UBITECH ENERGY drives the design of the D-HYDROFLEX Hydropower 4.0 toolkit for real-time system management and remote monitoring that will support plant operators in participating to wholesale power markets and will increase the efficiency of the plant operation, as well as the development of the develop the services enabling user interaction with the toolkit, including a dashboard with interactive capabilities that provides targeted information to Hydropower Plant Operators, and the cloud-based monitoring and diagnostics center that will provide plant operators with remote, real-time insights into overall plant operations.
