Manuel Galvez, European Affairs lead for the Elia Group, advises on European policy and legislation on a variety of topics, among them digitalisation and data.

Alongside colleagues in different teams across the group, which includes the two transmission system operators Elia in Belgium and 50Hertz in Germany, he is also part of an expanding network of stakeholders on digitalisation both within the sector and across sectors. “Digitalisation is key for accelerating decarbonisation centred on consumers, and particularly the different policy and legislation on issues such as data sharing, data access and interoperability,” he says.

What are the main TSO uses of data?

As a TSO with regulated tasks, the types of data we need depend on those tasks and the activities within them. One is keeping the system balanced 24/7. With more renewables, but also with more digitalisation and electrification of demand, we need more granular data not only within our own transmission grid but also at the lower voltage levels to be better prepared, for example to better forecast for patterns of demand or generation, from many months ahead up to real-time. We also require data to improve the scenarios and models that we use for network planning. We need to see what the pathways are for the future and within these pathways the characteristics of certain kind of assets, for instance […]