May has been an exciting and impactful month for the OPENTUNITY project, as several partners took part in high-level conferences and academic forums across Europe. From social sciences to engineering innovation, OPENTUNITY’s presence underscored its interdisciplinary relevance and the growing interest in its approach to enabling a flexible, interoperable, and inclusive energy system.

STS Conference 2025 – Graz, Austria

📅 May 5–7

At the Science, Technology and Society (STS) Conference in Graz, JOANNEUM RESEARCH represented OPENTUNITY through a dedicated session. The session, titled: “Advancing Urban and Rural Energy Systems for Inclusive, Scalable, and Technologically Integrated Energy Solutions,” explored how energy technologies can be developed in ways that are both technically sound and socially inclusive. Key insights included:

• The critical need for citizen involvement from the early stages of technology development.
• The gatekeeping role of energy companies in scaling energy communities.
• The importance of sector coupling in developing resilient urban energy systems.

This participation reinforced OPENTUNITY’s commitment to not only driving innovation but also shaping just and inclusive energy transitions.

Syngrid Summer School – Ljubljana, Slovenia

📅 May 14

Our partners from the University of Ljubljana and Kolektor sETup presented OPENTUNITY at the Syngrid Summer School, an event focused on the digitalization of energy systems and the role of EU-funded innovation in the energy transition.

The session featured:

• An introduction to the four main pillars of OPENTUNITY: OPENFLEX, OPENGRID, OPENSPACE, and OPENABILITY.
• Technical highlights from the Slovenian pilot site, including the integration of Reduxi HEMS and EV charging stations into Kolektor’s platform, enabling advanced forecasting and real-time flexibility services.
• Live examples from Kolektor sETup demonstrating how their platform OPTIMA is evolving through collaboration in projects like OPENTUNITY.

The presentation offered students and young professionals a hands-on view of how cutting-edge research is applied in real-world energy systems.

 

17th Conference of Slovenian Electric Power Engineers (CIGRE) – Laško, Slovenia

📅 May 20–22

Later in the month, OPENTUNITY was presented at the 17th CIGRE Conference in Laško, one of Slovenia’s leading professional events in the energy sector. During the conference, representatives from the Slovenian pilot shared the project’s vision and current achievements, particularly in:

• Enabling data-driven grid optimization through OPENGRID tools.
• Supporting real-time management of distributed energy resources (DERs).
• Highlighting OPENTUNITY’s federated data infrastructure (OPENSPACE) as a foundation for secure, trusted data exchange.

The event provided an excellent platform to engage with engineers, grid operators, and industry stakeholders, and to share the tangible progress being made through the pilot demonstrations.

Driving Collaboration Across Europe

These three events highlight OPENTUNITY’s strong presence in academic, technical, and professional arenas. By sharing results and engaging with diverse audiences — from students to engineers to researchers — the project is fostering knowledge exchange and building the collaborative ecosystem needed to deliver the energy systems of tomorrow.

Stay tuned as we continue to bring OPENTUNITY’s innovations to new platforms and audiences throughout 2025!