UBITECH ENERGY participates in the virtual kick-off meeting, hosted by CIRCE (September 22, 2020), of the TIGON Innovation Action, officially started on September 1st, 2020. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 957769) and spans on the period September 2020 – August 2024. The TIGON project aims to enable a smooth deployment and integration of intelligent DC-based grid architectures within the current energy system, while providing ancillary services to the main network. To do so, TIGON proposes a four-level approach aiming at improving (1) Reliability, (2) Resilience (3) Performance, and (4) Cost Efficiency of hybrid grids through the development of an innovative portfolio of power electronic solutions and software systems and tools focused on the efficient monitoring, control and management of DC grids. These solutions will be demonstrated in two main Demo-Sites located in France and Spain.
TIGON has been conceived as a demonstration project for realizing about the potential of DC-grids in this new energy paradigm. To this end, main TIGON demo-sites rely on the integration of a high share of RES in MVDC and LVDC and their interaction with different AC and DC loads such as electric vehicles (EV) and energy storage systems (ESS), not only reducing energy losses but also optimizing the overall control and operation of the grid in a cost-effective and seamless manner. Main innovations within TIGON project will include smart transformers, innovative DC/DC converter topologies, PE for MVDC connection and DC protection systems. These developments will be supported by an adequate framework composed by modelling, simulation, control, optimization of generation and loads and security analysis activities. Only in this way will be TIGON able to demonstrate a comprehensive solution for DC-based hybrid grids that generates confidence on the market and lays down the foundations for their replication throughout the EU.
Within TIGON, UBITECH ENERGY designs and develops the Cybersecurity Defence System for the TIGON software-based monitoring, control and energy management applications, adhering to the latest Commission recommendations on cybersecurity in the energy sector of 3.4.2019 (C(2019) 2400 final), which strongly emphasize on cyber-resilience as a priority for energy network operators and technology suppliers. In particular, UBITECH ENERGY implements a fast, distributed security framework that intelligently incorporates the physical state of the defended system and blocks incorrect operation actions, incorporating detection of adversarial manipulation by cross-checking commands and configuration changes for consistency with the physical state of the system, while being deployable and interoperable with communication standards, specifying the threat models facing the DC and AC/DC hybrid grids and developing the relative defence mechanisms, realizing a complete implementation plan for cyber-resilience, including Vulnerability Assessment, Security Behaviour analysis, Anomaly Detection, Security Information and Event Management – focusing mostly on Data Integrity Attack scenarios, affecting horizontally all TIGON software-based tools for monitoring, control and energy management services.
