For the last year and almost a half, people have enquired us – ‘what is SMAGRINET, what does it actually do?’ - and in all fairness, it has been rather hard to explain or illustrate without a ready product.
Despite the COVID situation, pilot phases and the challenges, which we have had to endure - we are finally ready to reveal and provide our services.
Here it comes: SMAGRINET is a learning and knowledge centre, which focuses on the smart grid and provides schooling and material on the subject. It is that simple.
And it has been some work, if I may say modestly. For the first phase of the project we contacted companies from the power and energy industry, government bodies, universities and other stakeholder and mainly worked on getting as much information as possible, which the stakeholders saw as lacking or misunderstanding the smart grid subject.
On the basis of that information, TUB with KTU led the information packaging from within the consortium. The effective team managed to package the information within a short period of time and by the beginning of 2020 we were ready to pilot our first set of modules, and lectures began at the consortium universities on the subject of:
- Smart grids societal and economical challenges
- Technical grid planning
- AI and machine learning in the grid
The pandemic provided some challenges for the lecturers but the first set of almost a hundred students passed the first lecture round by July. Next set of lectures has already started in autumn and shall continue in 2021. Today, our partner TUD is in conversation with other universities who would like to take up our SMAGRINET lectures and our partner ULJUB would provide the teaching of the teachers for those universities.
In addition to students, SMAGRINET has focused on the current workforce of the power and energy sector. With the extensive work done by our partner ULOR and LOBA, we are now able to provide online training courses and give a lot of insight into the complex world of Smart Grid development.
Participants get to know technical challenges and solutions, EU strategies towards the future of the energy stock and the advantages of using AI in the grid.
There are five main topics to choose from and three tiers of difficulty starting from an easier information package meant for the general public and two tires of a more concentrated material for engineers and academic workers in the power energy field.
It is rather difficult to predict what the COVID situation will develop into, but regarding continuing education in the following months to come, one thing is for certain - SMAGRINET and its team will provide you with quality online courses which will keep our workforce and general public educated even during a lockdown situation.
People are able to take the courses at their own pace and in an environment where they feel the safest in the midst of the pandemic.
During our webinars, power and energy sector specialist agreed that this form of continuing education would be the way of the future anyway, even without COVID. We are happy for the recognition and know that we are on a future educational path with the future grid.
If you would like to know more, our ‘Energy Game Changers 2020’ conference is happening in November. You are able to register HERE: https://www.smagrinet.eu/newsflash/events/energy-game-changers-2020-powered-by-smagrinet/ CORDIS_EU