The role of the SMAGRINET project was to create a smart grid competence hub addressing the area of smart and flexible energy systems with interrelations between renewable energy and energy storage, and to enhance the capacity of the European universities to engage with industry and key societal actors and respond to the challenges of the energy transition.

The SMAGRINET competence hub, POWER ON, tackles the shortage of skilled workforce by designing a set of powerful services:

• three Challenge and Case-Based Modules for Masters' students;
• International Student Mobility linked to European university programmes;
• Short-term Blended Learning programmes for three different target groups: broader public, engineering researchers and electrical engineering workforce;
• A Train-the-Trainers pilot to ensure fast and wide-scale replication of the programmes.

The key principles of the above-mentioned powerful services are:

• joint use of top-level expertise from European universities and knowledge-sharing (rotating the teaching staff and implementing measures to raise the capacity of the local teaching staff);
• close collaboration between industry, academia, and societal stakeholders, both during the development and implementation of the programmes (development of a matrix of challenges that defines the needs of the industry, problem-solving simulations, international internships at enterprises, engagement of the industry teaching staff);
• interdisciplinarity – involvement of SSH and ICT in the programmes.

Figure 1: Powerful services on the SMAGRINET's competence hub, POWER ON

CASE-BASED MASTER LEVEL MODULES

The three Challenge and Case-Based Modules have been developed, focusing on artificial intelligence in power systems, economic operation and the smart grids planning. All six universities from the SMAGRINET consortium integrated one of the three modules into their curriculum and implemented it during the project’s lifetime. Presentations of teaching methods from each partnering university and online manuals of the modules are available on SMAGRINET’s website.

STUDENT MOBILITY

The SMAGRINET project aimed to respond to urgent challenges of European industries concerning smart grids through online short programmes. These programmes responded to industrial needs in terms of skills and knowledge, but also to societal inspiration. The short-term programmes were designed for 3 different profiles: the broader public, engineering researchers and the electrical engineering workforce. They were not only implemented by all consortium universities, but also by four organizations beyond the consortium. All the materials and presented programmes are available via SMAGRINET’s Smart Grid from A to Z programmes. 

Figure 2: SMAGRINET's student roadshow to Estonia

SHORT-TERM PROGRAMMES

The SMAGRINET project aimed to respond to urgent challenges of European industries concerning smart grid through online short programmes. These programmes responded to industrial needs in terms of skills and knowledge but also to societal inspiration. The short-term programmes were designed for 3 different profiles: broader public, engineering researchers and electrical engineering workforce. They were not only implemented by all consortium universities but also by 4 organizations beyond consortium. All the materials and presented programmes are still reachable via SMAGRINET’s Smart Grid from A to Z programmes HERE.

TRAINING THE TRAINERS

SMAGRINET implemented a Train-the-Trainers pilot aimed at educating local experts, so they can teach the modules and programmes developed during the project. This allows for deployment, replication, and exploitation of the projects' results. Within the 2-day Workshop, all Case-Based modules and short-term programmes were presented in detail. Moreover, in order to assist in the uptake of the materials at universities all over Europe, online manuals were offered to the participants. All presented materials are available on the SMAGRINET’s Train-the-Trainers website.

These Powerful Services contributed to the successful conclusion of the SMAGRINET project. All the consortium universities show great interest in implementing these materials in their Masters' Curriculums, and we believe that that is a crucial step in the journey towards a steadier energy transition in Europe.
With this in mind, the sustainability and exploitation of the SMAGRINET’s results are well on their way to being fruitful.

 

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