CINELDI is one of the Centres for Environmentally-Friendly Energy Research in Norway. The objective is to enable a cost-efficient realisation of the future flexible and robust electricity distribution grid.

Long-term research is needed in order to digitalise the electricity grid and make the necessary transformation of the grid for the future. This will pave the ground for increased distributed generation from renewable resources, electrification of transport, and more efficient energy use. For example, this means that the distribution grid will interact with smart grid customers, electrical vehicles, PV and other renewable power generation.
CINELDI has a budget of about NOK 360 million (about 40 MEuro) and will last for 8 years. CINELDI targets innovation on the system level of the cyber-physical distribution system of 2030-2040. The main topics of research are smart grid development, asset management and operation, interaction between the distribution system operators and the transmission system operator, microgrids and utilization of flexible resources in the system. Altogether, this will provide input to smart grid scenarios and transition strategies for the Norwegian distribution system.

This centre is a unique opportunity to build up a national team for the long-term research needed to digitalize the distribution system, where multi-disciplinary research teams at SINTEF and NTNU work together with leading grid companies (DSOs), the system operator (TSO), market operator and leading technology providers. There are 29 partners in CINELDI altogether, including the energy regulator, electricity authority and the communications authority, as well as partners for knowledge transfer and innovation. CINELDI will also collaborate with international research institutes in Europe, the USA and Japan, to strengthen our competences. It is the ambition that CINELDI will become a European reference project.

The Norwegian SmartGrid laboratory is a unique and important resource for the research in CINELDI as well as living labs at the grid companies where pilot projects will be running.

What achievements do we foresee from the research in CINELDI? The DSOs will realise an intelligent grid that is robust, flexible and cost-effective. The TSO will get access to flexible resources from grid customers and the DSO. The market operator and the technology providers will develop new market- and business models, products and services and strengthen their competitiveness.

The grid customer being a producer, a consumer or prosumer, will become an active customer and realise the value of their flexible resources.