Alex Gabriel
The two SMAGRINET pilot programmes "Smart Grid: from A to Z" have been successfully completed! The many months of writing, editing and animation of our smart grid courses have been rewarded by a level of participation and interest beyond all of our expectations. The number of rewards produced outstands the purpose of the project, and the completion rate is much higher than average online courses. Is there a better way to finish the SMAGRINET project!?
Two years have passed since the beginning of the SMAGRINET project. During these two years, the consortium worked hard to develop and deploy three short-term programmes for three different profiles: the broader public, engineering researchers and the workforce of the energy sector.
The main difficulty was to present in an intelligible way the complexity of the smart grid and why it is crucial in the energy transition. Thanks to the expertise of all the consortium partners, our smart grid courses have been comprehensively structured and adapted to the level of each public. This resulted in five chapters; the first presents the general concepts, the context and challenges that justify smart grid application; the other four deepen technical aspects, such as the electrical infrastructure, the information system, the management and decisional system, and policy aspects.
The logic behind this structure is to cover the data lifecycle from the physical phenomena observed through its acquisition, processing, and finally usage for decision-making, whereas legal and economic policies frame the activity of the entire sector.
Although reaching the end of the production process is already a satisfaction, seeing that the programmes raise interest from many participants is even more gratifying.
The short-term programmes, along with the two pilots, gathered more than 1 330 people. We organised more than 25 live sessions that promoted discussion and exchanges about smart grids and related works, with hundreds of participants. To reward people who correctly answered the quiz of the chapters, 1 368 badges were delivered. Of those who received rewards, 513 people completed all five chapters. This means that “Smart grid from A to Z” programmes have a completion rate of 39%, which is an incredible score in comparison to other online courses, which have an average participation rate of around 7.5%.
These results were reached whereas programmes are just getting started in three outreaching countries. It means we will be introducing even more people to the topics of smart grids and energy transition. Even though the pilots are over, it’s not too late to learn more about these topics! If you want to take the smart grid course that hundreds of people have successfully completed, go to “Smart Grid: From A to Z” on the SMAGRINET website. You will have access to our three self-paced online programmes, one for each target: the broader public, engineering researchers and the electrical engineering workforce.