Innovative solutions for a generative AI-powered digital spine of the EU energy system
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See in 5 min if you're eligible for Innovative solutions for a generative AI-powered digital spine of the EU energy system offering max €33.0M funding💰 Funding Details
Funding Description
Overview
HORIZON-CL5-2026-02-D3-19 "Innovative solutions for a generative AI-powered digital spine of the EU energy system" is a Horizon Europe Innovation Action (IA). It supports large-scale prototypes and demonstrations that fuse generative AI with digital energy infrastructures to accelerate decarbonisation, flexibility and sector coupling across at least three EU/Associated countries.
Budget & Funding Rate
* Indicative EU contribution per project: up to €33 million (no minimum; smaller high-impact projects are possible but must justify scale).
* Funding rate:
* 70 % of eligible direct costs for profit-making legal entities.
* 100 % for non-profit legal entities.
* 25 % flat-rate for indirect costs.
* Total call budget: published in the 2025–2027 Work Programme (approx. €66–100 million expected, enabling 2–3 projects).
Timetable
* Call opens: 16 Sep 2025
* Deadline (single stage): 17 Feb 2026, 17:00 CET
* Evaluation results: ~May 2026
* Grant agreement signature: ~Sep 2026
* Typical project duration: 36–48 months (must reach ≥ TRL 7 by end).
What Costs Are Eligible
1. R&D and innovation activities: design, development, testing and validation of generative-AI models, digital-twin layers, edge-cloud orchestration, cybersecurity-by-design, interoperability toolkits.
2. Demonstration & pilot sites in ≥ 3 Member/Associated States, incl. hardware (smart meters, EV chargers, sensors, edge devices), software licences, cloud, data-sharing infrastructure, and integration with SCADA/DERMS/EMS.
3. Interoperability & standardisation work: contributions to CEN-CENELEC, IEC, ETSI, open-source communities.
4. AI Act compliance & ethics: conformity assessment, risk mitigation, trustworthy-AI audits, data-protection impact assessments.
5. Stakeholder engagement: living labs with energy communities, user-centred design, training, gender and diversity measures.
6. Exploitation, replication and market uptake: business modelling, IP management, regulatory sandboxing, investment readiness.
Eligible Applicants & Consortia
* Who: Any legal entity from EU Member States, Horizon-Europe Associated Countries, or countries with self-funding arrangements. International partners (e.g. US, UK) may participate without EU funding.
* Consortium requirements:
* Minimum 3 independent entities from 3 different Member/Associated States.
* Strong mix of DSOs/TSOs, technology providers, AI specialists, research orgs, SMEs, start-ups, aggregators, mobility actors, building/industry end-users, and standardisation bodies.
* Direct access to real-world energy assets and data.
Complementary Conditions
* Must interface with and reuse outputs from "AI Factories" and prior Horizon projects (BRIDGE, FLEXGRID, InterConnect, etc.).
* Open Science & FAIR data principles apply; software encouraged to be open-source under permissive licences.
* Security-sensitive results handled under EU Classified Information rules where relevant.
* Gender Equality Plans mandatory for public bodies, HEIs and research organisations.
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📊 At a Glance
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🇪🇺 Strategic Advantages
EU-wide advantages and opportunities for the call HORIZON-CL5-2026-02-D3-19
1. Continental data volume and diversity
- Access to smart-meter, EV, building and industrial datasets from 27 Member States plus Associated Countries dramatically improves AI model generalisation, bias reduction and robustness for high-risk use cases defined in the AI Act.
- Harmonised data sharing frameworks (Data Spaces for Energy, Mobility, Built Environment) and common governance under the Data Act provide a unique legal base that is unavailable at national scale.
- EU-funded AI Factories offer pre-trained foundation models, HPC capacity and cloud-to-edge sandboxes that reduce model training cost and carbon footprint.
2. Cross-border flexibility and market integration
- Generative AI that optimises flexibility can tap into a single electricity market worth over €400 bn per year, leveraging intra-day, balancing and capacity mechanisms defined by the Clean Energy Package.
- Alignment with Network Code on Demand Response and the upcoming EU Digitalisation of Energy Action Plan accelerates regulatory acceptance of AI-driven services in all participating countries.
3. Interoperability and standards leadership
- Consortium can influence IEC, CENELEC, ETSI and ENTSO-E standards via obligatory engagement with BRIDGE, ensuring AI-ready extensions to CIM, SAREF, OpenADR and OCPP.
- Early compliance with the Cyber-resilience Act and the AI Act creates a first-mover advantage for export to other regions adopting EU-inspired regulation.
4. Economies of scale for deployment
- Aggregating procurement of edge devices, sensors and digital-twin platforms across multiple DSOs lowers unit costs by up to 25 % (EC Joint Research Centre estimate).
- Shared open-source components (e.g. Eclipse SEAS, FIWARE, LF Energy) reduce development time and lock-in, aligning with Horizon Europe requirements for open science.
5. Replicability across climatic and network conditions
- Demonstrations in at least three Member States allow validation under different RES mixes (e.g. PV-heavy South, wind-heavy North, hydro-based Alpine) and grid codes, boosting TRL and investor confidence.
- Validated blueprints can be referenced in National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) 2026 update, unlocking cohesion-policy and Recovery and Resilience Facility funds for roll-out.
6. Strengthened security of supply and resilience
- Pan-European AI-enabled situational awareness supports coordinated response to extreme weather, cyber threats and energy price shocks, dovetailing with the EU Critical Entities Resilience Directive.
7. Innovation and SME scaling
- Alignment with European Innovation Council Transition and EDF Energy resilience calls offers follow-up funding paths.
- SMEs gain EU label of excellence, facilitating access to the €10 bn InvestEU loan guarantee window for energy and digital infrastructure.
8. Social acceptance and consumer empowerment
- Harmonised user-centric design guided by EU Digital Principles ensures privacy-by-design and transparent algorithmic decision-making, key for public trust.
- Energy communities in several countries can pool demand response, benefiting from VAT exemption and simplified licensing under the Internal Market in Electricity Directive.
9. Environmental impact at EU scale
- By enabling an additional 3 GW of flexible demand and 5 TWh of avoided curtailment annually, the project can help cut circa 2 MtCO₂ per year, contributing directly to the Fit-for-55 target.
10. Consortium building opportunities
- Combine:
• Distribution and transmission system operators from different synchronous areas.
• AI Factories and HPC centres (e.g. LUMI, Leonardo) for model training.
• Large manufacturers for edge hardware and DER controllers.
• SMEs and start-ups for specialised AI services (forecasting, digital twins, cyber security).
• Cities and energy communities as living labs.
- Leverage synergies with previous Horizon projects (FLEXIGRID, SYNERGIE5, HEDNO-EDGEFLEX) to reach TRL 7-8 quickly.
11. Financial leverage
- Horizon funding rate of 70 % (plus possible 25 % indirect cost flat rate) de-risks high-CAPEX pilots (~€20 m), while co-funding can be sourced from Connecting Europe Facility Digital for cross-border infrastructure and ETS Innovation Fund for large-scale storage integration.
12. Policy shaping and long-term sustainability
- Demonstrator results can feed into the 2027 revision of the TEN-E Regulation to embed digital spines as Projects of Common Interest (PCIs).
- Opens path to standard service-based business models eligible for network tariff remuneration under upcoming EU network tariff guidelines.
Bottom line: An EU-wide consortium can capitalise on regulatory alignment, vast cross-sector data, shared infrastructure and standardisation influence to de-risk and scale generative AI solutions for a digital, decarbonised and citizen-centric energy system—benefits that no single Member State can realise alone.
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