Back from Munich at the end of June, we’ve had some time to reflect on smarter E Europe and what the event looked like from an Alliance perspective.
As the largest group of exhibitions for the energy industry, combining Intersolar Europe (solar), eees Europe (batteries and energy storage), Power2Drive (EV charging infrastructure), and EM-Power Europe (smart grids and energy management), it’s a busy show attracting over 100,000 visitors.
Something for everything, and plenty for the Alliance. We were invited to be part of the smartEn Europe booth along with other smartEn members, Bamboo Energy, Wirepas, LIFEPOWR, CyberGrid, ENERGY POOL, Podero, Smart Energy Lab, and Gridio.
Here are my three key takeaways.
A major flex – we were also part of smartEn's #WhatTheFlex interactive session, which brought together leading flexibility players to tackle the industry's biggest trends, challenges and misconceptions.
It became clear that we need to focus on the customer when talking about flex markets. Flex companies and utilities often focus on the ‘business model’ and ‘utility value’ but underestimate the need to fully embrace the customer and offer them simple solutions. We also highlighted the fact that while we typically say, "the technology is available", we need to realize that while that’s true, the implementations and off-the-shelf availability are still lagging behind.
The challenge is that many flex providers tend to work in silos. As an alliance, we often talk the need for more industry collaboration and knowledge-sharing – and this has never been more relevant today.
Absence of AI – walking the floor, I spotted a few other booths with messaging around flexibility, V2G, and so on. Not as much as expected, given how important this is for energy management. The EV charging side focused mainly on size, battery backup for commercial charging, and the functionality of the chargers themselves, while Intersolar had a big focus on all types of mounting systems for solar panels in, and energy storage systems.
Notable by its absence was any visible AI except for some modelling and robotics for survey equipment and cleaning systems. Let’s see what next year brings!
Back to flexibility – on a final note, as a speaker and panellist this year talking about From the Living Room to the Grid: How Matter + OpenADR Enable Mass-Market Flexibility, it provided an opportunity to present the OpenADR Alliance to a diverse and engaged audience. It also led to a lively discussion, suggesting a need to talk more about mass market flexibility at this type of forum.
Looking ahead, smarter E 2027 will take place in Munich again from June 7 to June 10. The conference organizers are already shaping the 2027 program, and welcome ideas for topics, interesting projects, or speakers with diverse perspectives alongside real-world case studies.
#TheSmarterE #Intersolar #eesEvents #Power2Drive #EMPower #WhatTheFlex