A consortium of European energy companies, led by EirGrid, has scooped over €20 million from the European Union (EU) to fund research into the deployment of renewable energy.

The EU-SysFlex project will receive the funding under Horizon 2020, the EU's €80 billion research and innovation programme. EirGrid is the overall project co-ordinator, while French electricity group EDF will act as technical co-ordinator.

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The project involves 34 organisations from 15 countries across Europe and has an overall budget of €26 million. It will run for four years until 2021.

Fintan Slye, Chief Executive of EirGrid, said: "Our engineers have been working to meet the challenges of operating the electricity system while achieving high renewable electricity targets. Running the power system with the current high levels of renewable energy is unprecedented and presents significant challenges for its real-time operation."

The aim of the EU-SysFlex project is to identify issues associated with integrating large amounts of renewable energy; provide practical assistance to power system operators across Europe; and create a long-term roadmap to facilitate the large-scale integration of renewable energy.

(CD/LM)