A Pan-European Green Energy Kickoff in Lisbon
In late June 2025, members of the EnergyGuard consortium convened in Lisbon, Portugal for the project’s first all-partner plenary meeting. This kickoff event brought together experts and stakeholders from across Europe – a total of 15 partner organizations – to review the project’s first six months and plan upcoming activities.
Hosted by the Portuguese research center R&D Nester, the two-day meeting marked the official launch of EnergyGuard’s ambitious three-year journey towards greener and smarter energy systems.
The EnergyGuard project is one of three EU-funded “AI Testing and Experimentation Facility (TEF)” initiatives in the energy sector.
Backed by the Horizon Europe program, it aims to bridge the gap between lab innovations and real-world deployment of cutting-edge energy technologies by providing open, large-scale testing infrastructure.
Showcasing Cutting-Edge Energy Facilities Across Europe
A highlight of the Lisbon plenary was a showcase of the consortium’s five state-of-the-art testing facilities (the “TEFs”) that form the core of EnergyGuard’s research network. Partners from each facility presented their capabilities and ongoing work. For example, Spain’s CARTIF research center demonstrated its hydrogen-based energy testbed – a key component of EnergyGuard’s Hydrogen TEF. This hydrogen Testing and Experimentation Facility (TEF) will allow innovators to experiment with integrating hydrogen technologies into energy systems under real-life conditions.
Other partner facilities introduced at the meeting include:
– Transmission Networks TEF (Portugal): A large-scale power grid simulation and digital twin environment led by R&D Nester, representing a national electricity transmission network.
– Microgrids TEF (Spain): A renewable microgrid test site (hosted by CIEMAT) with distributed solar, wind, and battery systems, for validating AI in managing decentralized energy resources.
– Residential Buildings TEF (Latvia): A high-fidelity digital twin of a city’s apartment buildings (run by Riga Energy Agency), used to test energy efficiency AI solutions in building management.
– Renewable Energy Communities TEF (Italy): A real-world renewable energy community demonstrator (led by EnGreen) for experimenting with community-level energy sharing, storage, and smart control technologies.
Accelerating Innovation with AI and Digital Twins
The Lisbon kickoff underscored EnergyGuard’s unique approach: combining AI, advanced simulation (digital twins), sensor data, and data science to accelerate energy innovation.
Through the TEF network, an entrepreneur can, for instance, test how an AI software for grid optimization performs on a digital twin of an actual power network, or verify an AI-driven hydrogen fuel cell control system on a physical testbed before deploying it in the field.
By leveraging Europe’s green high-performance computing infrastructure and real-world test sites, EnergyGuard’s platform will help validate these new solutions in a cost-effective and realistic setting.
This integrated testing capability is crucial to bridging the gap between laboratory prototypes and market-ready products, ensuring that AI-based energy innovations are trustworthy, cyber-secure, and meet regulatory standards before full deployment.
EnergyGuard’s ultimate goal is to drive a greener and more digital energy sector across Europe. By optimizing the rollout of AI-enabled technologies – from smarter electricity grids to hydrogen energy systems – the project is expected to contribute to a more sustainable, resilient, and flexible energy system. “The TEF aims at fully validating AI solutions for a greener, smarter and more flexible energy system,” the consortium noted.
Collaboration Sparks an Exciting Journey Ahead
The successful first plenary has set an energetic tone for the project’s next steps. The face-to-face collaboration in Lisbon helped solidify the team’s strategy and strengthened connections among the diverse partners – spanning technology developers, research institutes, and energy providers from at least 5 EU countries.
The Lisbon kickoff meeting exemplified the spirit of innovation and cooperation driving EnergyGuard. By uniting Europe’s top-tier energy testing facilities and digital expertise under one initiative, the project is poised to deliver impactful results.
The lessons learned and technologies validated through EnergyGuard will not only help participating organizations, but also set benchmarks for the wider energy industry – demonstrating how artificial intelligence, data-driven insights, and cross-border collaboration can guard the future of energy.
This collaborative start in Lisbon is just the beginning, and all partners left the plenary energized to turn the project’s bold vision into reality over the next three years.
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