Media and News

EcoGrid EU is winner of the EUSEW Award 2016

EcoGrid EU is the winner of the prestigious EU Sustainable Energy Award 2016 (EUSEW16).


The project received the prize for the most outstanding and innovative energy project in the category Consumers. The prize were announced on 14 June – during the Sustainable Energy Week in Brussels.   

– We are very pleased - and we are very proud! The price is also going to the 2,000 Bornholm families who are the backbone of the EcoGrid EU project, said Betina Haagensen, Vice chairman of Østkraft (Bornholm Energi og Forsyning) when she received the award from EU Commissioner for Climate and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, 14th of June during the Sustainable Energy Week in Brussels.   

Betina Haagensen and Klaus Vesløv from Østkraft (Bornholm Energi og Forsyning) are receiving the EUSEW Award 2016 in Brussels, 14 June 2016

The EcoGrid EU project was chosen from a list of 200 projects for clean, secure and efficient energy.



Winners of the Public and Business Sector Awards



The project Sustainable-energy transformation, Municipality of Pokupsko (Croatia) won the Public Sector award. while the Businesses Category prize went to Green Brewery Göss by Brau Union Österreich (Austria), which is the world’s first major carbon-neutral brewery using only renewable energy.


What is EUSEW?
Sustainable Energy Week is a the most important European Policy conference dedicated to sustainable energy policy issues. Sessions organised by the European Commission and energy stakeholders debate new policy developments, best practices and sustainable energy ideas, while networking events forge alliances. Awards for outstanding projects begin the week.

Read more about the EUSEW Awards here>>

EcoGrid is continuing…

EcoGrid 2.0 is a reality. The project has received grant of 48.6 million DKK from the Danish EUDP program (The national energy technological development and demonstration program). 

– We are very pleased to have secured financial support to continue the EcoGrid project on Bornholm, says Jørgen S. Christensen, who is research director in Danish Energy and the project manager of EcoGrid 2.0.

He thinks too many demand response RD&D projects happens behind a desk. Here is a demonstration, based on the active participation of consumers. It is some of the most important knowledge we as researchers can obtain.

Østkraft´s EcoGrid project manager Maja Bendtsen is also happy:

– We are very pleased that many of our test participants want to continue participating in the EcoGrid project.

160 people joined the final EcoGrid EU conference

On Tuesday September 15th the final EcoGrid EU results were presented at the EcoGrid EU conference. About 160 people joined the conference at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby. They listened to the experiences from the EcoGrid EU demonstration, project, which has come to an end after four and a half year.

«Despite of challenges and steep learning curve along the road, the  results of the demonstration are very satisfying» said Per Lund, Energinet.dk (the Danish Transmission System Operator). He was responsible for the overall evaluation of the demonstration project.

The project coordinator Ove Grande from Sintef Energy Research was happy with the final results. He was also proud of the recognition the project has received such as the international nomination to the `Sustainia award´ for the best ICT solution (2012) and the `Honourable Mentioned´ prize (ISGAN/GSGF) for consumer engagement on Bornholm (2014).

Maja Bendtsen, Østkraft (host of the demonstration on Bornholm) referred to the final customer survey where 70% of the respondents (900 households) gave a positive rating to the overall EcoGrid EU project and that almost 80% would like to participate again in a project such as EcoGrid EU.

«In the current regulatory framework, incentives to have efficient system operation is too low», said Georgios Giannopoulos, ELIA, (System Operator in Belgium). He was responsible for the EcoGrid EU Roadmap and the recommendations to policy makers: «We need incentives for more efficient operation, this will improve utilization of the assets and postpone investments. Innovation is likely to result in more sophisticated and efficient operation. Smart network tariff structures should incentivize active consumers and system needs and cost of energy should be better communicated and understood by all stakeholders».

160 participated at the final EcoGrid EU conference	IBM posters about the EcoGrid EU ICT architecture	The conference participants visit the "live"  PowerLab DK
The EcoGrid EU lego model found its way from Bornholm to the conference at DTU-CEE	Siemens  showed how the home automation system works	EcoGrid EU art decoration

Find the conference programme, list of participants, the EcoGrid EU presentations and final EcoGrid EU reports here:

Conference programme

List of participants 

Partner presentations:

Reflections from the Coordinator, O.Grande, SINTEF Energy Research

EcoGrid EU Market Concept, J. Østergaard, DTU-CEE

Learnings from Automating the Price-Response of Private Households, F. Mueller, IBM Research Zurich

ICT & Technical solutions for aggregators, private & industry, A. Arendt & W. Ziel, Siemens

From traditional meter reading to almost online system information, B. Hansen, Landis+gyr

Demonstration: vision vs. reality, P. Lund, Energinet.dk

Østkraft - a physical laboratory, M.Bendtsen, Østkraft

EcoGrid EU evaluation: The concept and market place, P.Pinson & E. Larsen & G.Le Ray, DTU-CEE

Customer participation and evaluation, J. Mastop, ECN

Resulting Demand Response, F.Judex, AIT

Further Exploitation of the Technology, K. Kok, TNO

Balancing market integration and institutional issues, G. Giannopoulos, ELIA

Final reports

EcoGrid EU: From Implementation to Demonstration, 2015

EcoGrid EU: Findings and Recommendations (brochure), 2015

EcoGrid EU: Overall evaluation and conclusions, 2015

Replication roadmap, 2015

The final EcoGrid EU conference programme is now available

 Please download the complete conference programme.

Registration for the conference is closed. Please contact Anne M. Knudsen (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

or Jeannette M. Jørgensen (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) for late registration.

VENUE: DTU Lyngby, Glassalen, Anker Engelunds Vej 1, Building 101A,  Find a map here>>

Mark your calender for 15th of September 2015

EcoGrid EU will present the final results from the large-scale demonstration on Bornholm.

"We are looking forward to sharing our experiences from the EcoGrid project with the international community, and by that contributing with knowlegde valuable for the further development of the energy system and power markets", Ove Grande, EcoGrid EU coordinator (SINTEF).

Download the invitation here or click on the picture to the right.