We speak with Dirk Kaisers about the successful transformation of the electricity grid.

One award, five categories, 15 winners and an abundance of innovative and intelligent ideas, products, services and projects:

The "EUPD Research Installer Award," a global initiative led by EUPD Research dedicated to acknowledging and celebrating the invaluable contributions of key stakeholders in the renewable energy industry - "The Installers". With participation from 22 countries and over 200 awarded installers worldwide, this project serves as a platform for installers to showcase their expertise, share success stories, and gain recognition for their pivotal role in advancing the industry. The entire project is accompanied by a series of events. The award honors installers who demonstrate strong commitment, brand recognition, growth levels, and local market penetration. Focused on the distributed solar and storage segment, particularly the residential sector, the award identifies top-performing installers based on various key performance indicators such as deployed capacities, number of installations, geographical coverage, execution strategy, and overall growth rate. The "EUPD Research Installer Award" is a testament to the outstanding impact of downstream companies in driving the distributed generation segment forward.

A decentralised, flexible energy system puts energy consumers at the fore-front of the clean energy transition. Through demand-side flexibility, consumers are able to adjust their consumption, store energy, and inject energy into the grid during peak moments, contributing to a more efficient and sustainable decarbonisation pathway. smartEn has calculated that, with help from flexible consumers, in 2030 the EU energy system could avoid 15.5 TWh in renewable energy curtailment, a 61% improvement compared to if no action is taken, and avoid investments in 60 GW of peak generation capacity, equivalent to 137 gas peaking plants, resulting in €2.7 billion saved annually. This session aims to deep-dive into how decentralised assets such as PV, Stationary and Mobile storage, amongst others, are key to reducing costs for consumers, increasing the uptake of renewables and solving grid congestion issues.

For the eighth time, the most innovative energy suppliers in the DACH region (German-speaking countries) will be honoured with the Energiewende Award (Energy Transition Award) in Munich on 20 June 2024 as part of The smarter E Europe, Europe's largest exhibition alliance for the energy industry. The award is aimed at energy suppliers whose commitment is driving forward the energy transition in the individual aspects (electricity, heat, energy efficiency and mobility). The winners of the Energiewende Award will present more detailed insights into the challenges of the energy transition for municipal utilities and their solution strategies in panel discussions during the award ceremony.The Energiewende Award will be extended to additional target markets for the first time in 2024. Other European energy suppliers from France, Italy and Denmark will also be invited to the award ceremony. The focus here is on municipal utilities that have a focus on renewable energies and stand out from other energy suppliers as so-called flagship projects. Based on their offerings in areas such as green electricity and green gas, PV systems and charging stations as well as their increased commitment to the energy transition, the lighthouses from the three countries will be invited to the award ceremony as role models and motivators for other municipal utilities.The initiators of the project are The smarter E Europe and EUPD Research.

From an energy industry and energy policy perspective, a lot is currently happening in decentralised generation and in the prosuming sector. With its amendment to the Electricity Market Directive, the EU has strengthened the rights of citizens to participate in the energy transition and in Germany, the Solar Package I introduces community building supply, thus taking a major step towards energy sharing. However, for energy sharing to be successful on a large scale, it must above all be uncomplicated and economically viable.Austria and Switzerland are already a few steps ahead of Germany in this respect, which is why we want to discuss the future development of energy sharing: Energy sharing should become as simple as car sharing - where do the countries in the DACH region stand and what else is needed for this?