UBITECH has officially started its work in Co4RES, the EC co-funded research and innovation project on “Coherent control and operation tools for RES-based energy systems”. The project was launched at its kick-off meeting on 8–9 September 2026 in Copenhagen, Denmark, hosted by the project coordinator, the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). UBITECH was represented by its Energy Digitalisation (EDG) Research Group, which will lead the company’s technical contribution throughout the project. Funded under Horizon Europe through Grant Agreement No 101269501 and managed by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), Co4RES runs from September 2026 to August 2029. The consortium brings together 36 partners from 15 countries to develop and demonstrate control and operation tools that allow Europe’s power systems to integrate very high shares of renewable energy securely, efficiently and in a coordinated way.
The project tackles the full spectrum of challenges introduced by wind, solar and new sources of electricity demand, with solutions designed to operate across all voltage levels and time horizons. At its core is a coherent hierarchy of forecasting and control that preserves temporal and spatial consistency, a prerequisite for effective TSO–DSO interaction and cross-border coordination. New forecasting approaches will combine data-driven methods with digital twins to sharpen the predictability of both renewable generation and demand.
To safeguard system security as inverter-based generation displaces conventional plants, Co4RES will design advanced solutions for frequency and voltage stability, including fast-acting automated controllers and coordinated reactive power management. These innovations will be validated at seven large-scale pilot sites across Europe, spanning diverse climatic and operational contexts and involving 11 transmission and distribution system operators. The pilots will test the Co4RES tools under real-life conditions, including the operational pressures created by data centres, storage systems and flexible demand assets, demonstrating how distribution networks, transmission systems and new consumers can become active resources for the energy system.
UBITECH’s role: middleware for real-time operational decision-making
Within Co4RES, UBITECH will focus on the digital layer that connects forecasting, monitoring and control. The company will test the ability of middleware to support operational decision-making and control in a laboratory environment, examining how middleware services ingest, process and route real-time inputs such as renewable and demand forecasts, grid state estimations, and control signals addressed to flexibility assets, storage systems and inverter-based resources.
This work tackles a question that is becoming central to every system operator: whether the data and control pipelines between tools can keep pace with the speed, volume and criticality of decisions required in a renewable-dominated grid. By stress-testing these interactions before they reach live pilot environments, UBITECH will help ensure that the project’s forecasting and control innovations can be integrated reliably into operational practice.
The contribution is delivered by UBITECH’s Energy Digitalisation (EDG) Research Group, under the scientific responsibility of Dr Magda Foti, Head of the Group. The work builds on the Group’s expertise in smart grids, decentralised energy markets, demand response and the integration of power systems with machine learning, optimisation and distributed ledger technologies.
Statements
“As renewables move from the margins to the centre of Europe’s power systems, operators need more than better forecasts and faster controllers; they need a digital fabric that delivers the right information to the right decision point in time,” said Dr Magda Foti, Head of the Energy Digitalisation Research Group at UBITECH. “In Co4RES we will put middleware under realistic laboratory conditions, feeding it live forecasts, state estimations and control signals for flexibility, storage and inverter-based resources, to establish how it can support secure and coordinated operation. The kick-off in Copenhagen confirmed a consortium with the operational depth to take these results from the lab to real grids.”
“Co4RES reflects UBITECH’s long-standing commitment to translating research into tools that matter for Europe’s critical infrastructure,” added Thanassis Bouras, Research Strategy Director and co-founder of UBITECH. “Working alongside DTU and eleven system operators gives our Energy Digitalisation Research Group a unique opportunity to shape how software and data infrastructures will underpin the energy transition, and strengthens our position as a trusted technology partner for the European energy sector.”
About Co4RES
Co4RES (“Coherent control and operation tools for RES-based energy systems”) is a 36-month Horizon Europe Innovation Action (September 2026 – August 2029), coordinated by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and bringing together 36 partners from 15 countries, seven pilot sites and 11 system operators. More information is available on the project website and on CORDIS.
