On Tuesday 20 October 2026, PVSmile took part in the EU Projects Round Table at IEEE PES ISGT Europe 2026, the IEEE Power & Energy Society’s Innovative Smart Grid Technologies conference, hosted this year in Budapest together with the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME). Under the conference theme “From Flexibility to Autonomy, Smart Grids for a Sustainable and Stable Future”, the session brought together Horizon Europe projects working on different pieces of Europe’s energy transition.
Representing the project, Vasilis Kalavrouziotis presented how PVSmile is turning passive photovoltaic installations into smart, grid-integrated energy communities. Distributed PV is growing fast, yet it still largely behaves as a passive, uncoordinated producer. Grids face midday surplus, curtailment and congestion, while communities often lack the data, control and market access needed to offer their PV as grid flexibility.
PVSmile addresses this challenge through four complementary layers:
- People & governance: inclusive governance models, a Smart Grid Readiness Index for energy communities and fair business models.
- PV lifecycle: optimal planning, construction, operation & maintenance, and end-of-life reuse with traceability.
- Grid & data layer: interoperability, a PV-centric data space, and smart inverter and substation control.
- AI services: forecasting, flexibility services, a peer-to-peer marketplace and a GenAI-based digital twin.
The project brings together 28 partners, coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), with three distribution system operators (HEDNO, ARETI and CEVE) and 17 tools spanning the whole PV lifecycle. Its pilots run in nine countries on three continents: front runners in Greece, Italy and Portugal; EU early adopters in Spain, Germany and Slovenia; and non-EU early adopters in Morocco, Tunisia and Türkiye. The presentation also looked back at Crete Valley, where the PVSmile journey began.
The round table also featured the CABLEGNOSIS, NOMAD, TwinEU, INNO4GRID and INTELLIGENT projects, covering topics from power cable lifecycles and energy storage to interoperable digital twins, voltage regulation and local energy sharing.
We thank the moderator, our fellow panellists and the ISGT Europe 2026 organisers for a lively and constructive exchange.
Find out more about the project at www.pvsmile.eu and on CORDIS