Electricity coverage in North African countries is among the most advanced in Africa. However, in recent years energy demand has been increasing with the growing economic development as well as the increasing use of high energy-consuming loads like Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning loads to handle extreme weather conditions. To cope with this increase in energy needs, grid operators resort to load shedding by switching of non-essential load equipment’s. Load shedding reduces consumers comfort and impacts the economic development of these countries. Besides, there is a strong political commitment to exploit the abundant Renewable Energy Sources (RESs). This willingness is motivated by the need to meet the increasing energy demand and to reduce fossil fuel utilization. As in Europe, the integration of RESs faces strong constraints due to their intermittency as well as to the limited capacity of the existing grid infrastructures. In this context, the recent development of energy and digital communication technologies enabled the development of new grid paradigms. Among these paradigms, the development of MicroGrid (MG) systems appears as a suitable solution to encourage the integration of RESs while addressing the increasing load demand. The development of MGs in urban areas can represent a solution to improve power supply and to avoid frequent load shedding. Furthermore, MGs can promote the creation of off-grid communities with self-consumption. The development of this concept represents a huge challenge as it gathers multiple considerations with technical and socio-economical aspects. Therefore, the MiDiNA project aims to elaborate a multidisciplinary study to sustain the implementation of MGs to improve power supply and RESs integration in the context of African countries. Beginning with a building-scale MG, the study will first focus on the optimal techno-economic sizing with the objective to secure off-grid operation and the on-site meteorological and consumer specificities. The objective is then to demonstrate that resilient control solutions will ensure the effectiveness of this concept under critical conditions. The study will explore the deployment of these solutions at a neighborhood scale using a cooperative energy management between off-grid MGs. In addition, this project also has a social dimension as it aims to assess the social acceptance aspect. It includes also a projection study on the economic growth of MGs and a number of policy guidelines. The project activities are structured in 4 work packages: WP1. Making technological choices and optimal techno-economic dimensioning for a building scale MG considering meteorological and consumers specificities. WP2. Development of resilient control techniques to demonstrate that MGs solutions can ensure service continuity under critical conditions. WP3. Design of cooperative energy management strategies for a district-scale off-grid MGs cluster. WP4. Evaluating societal acceptance of MGs and their role in economic development of targeted countries. Guidelines measures will be prepared in collaboration with a local grid operator. Another WP0 will be dedicated to the coordination and dissemination activities. Besides, the project objectives deal with multi-disciplinary aspects related to the techno-economic and societal development of MGs. This study represents a great opportunity to gather several experts in different fields. The consortium is formed in a complementary way to address all project objectives with a special attention to gender dimension. The transfer of knowledge can be achieved at different levels: (i) knowledge transfer between senior and junior researchers, (ii) knowledge transfer in both methodological and experimentation aspects, and (iii) students training as well as awareness-raising actions for the civil society on the role of MGs. The methodological developments will be disseminated in conferences and renowned journals.

The EVA project (Electric Vehicle and Applications) aims to develop a consortium on the electro propulsion systems for electric and hybrid vehicles in the perspective to submit a proposal on the Green Vehicles calls of the Work Programme 2018-2020 “Transport” of H2020. Three partners among the four partners have already submitted a proposal on the call 2017 for a 12-partner project. Despite the marks greater than the thresholds, this proposal has not been funded by the European Commission. From this valuable experience, the three partners are working on a new proposal for the call 2018 with an adding partner with complementary skills. The EVA project is managed by the University of Lille, who will be the project leader for the proposal to the call LC-GV-02-2018 (Virtual product development and production of all types of electrified vehicles and components). The University of Lille has an expertise on simulation and energy management of electric and hybrid vehicles. The Vrije University of Brussels (Belgium) has an expertise on electrochemical batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles. The University of Cluj Napoca (Romania) has an expertise on electrical machines for electric and hybrid vehicles. The Typhoon HIL company (Serbia) has an expertise on embedded controller for testing and control of electric and hybrid vehicles. The consortium has thus relevant and complementary skills in the field of propulsion systems of electrified vehicles and their components. At the time, the consortium is looking for relevant partners for the targeted call in order to have a complete value chain. The industrial partners involved in the previous proposal have already been contacted (Renault, Valeo, Siemens Software, TUV). However, new partners are required to complete the consortium in agreement with the specificities of the new call, which include now hybrid vehicles and fuel-cell vehicle and not only battery electric vehicles. Moreover, based on the reviewer comments on the previous proposal, supplementary efforts will be realized to upgrade the quality of the proposal. First, contacts with leaders of other H2020 projects will be taken to better position the proposal with on-going projects, including the projects accepted in the last call. Second, a consulting company will be paid for the help in the proposal writing, specifically for an improvement of the “Impact” section, which is difficult to develop by scientific partners. Third, in complement with the classical meeting, a professional video-conference service will be booked in order to have weekly meeting the last months, without hazards of non-professional tools. Moreover, in a capitalization philosophy, the consortium will work after the submission on the call 2019 LC-GV-09-2020 (Next generation electrified vehicles for urban use). This call is not yet fully defined, but the topic is relevant for the consortium. Based on the partners of EVA, a new consortium will be developed in order to find the right partners for this second call.

An increasing number of different kinds of resources, including everyday objects, are interconnected to each other. Some analysts estimate that around 50 billions of devices should be interconnected at the horizon of 2020. This paves the way for new large-scale systems, and requires the need for novel architectures and design principles to support such a scale. Further, these resources may be very different at both the hardware and software layer, in terms of both functional and non-functional properties. This will lead to system of systems that federate highly heterogeneous distributed systems as already illustrated, for instance, by environmental and earth observation systems. Designing such large, interconnected and heterogeneous systems is a daunting task. A possible way to overcome the complexity of contemporary distributed systems is to leverage overlay networks and their higher level of abstraction. The virtualization of the underlying network resources allows providing a range of reusable network services. Many types of overlay networks have been proposed and developed in the previous years for a variety of networked systems, applications and services. However, the design and development of overlays remains a complex task, especially when dynamic adaptation, large-scale interoperability and composition are required. Adding interoperability, adaptation and composition capabilities often require huge and complex re-engineering of existing overlay implementations. In the context of overlay networks, it also requires appropriate abstractions and runtime support for allowing different type of overlays and structures to be linked, cooperate and provide adaptive interoperable end-to-end services in a dynamic fashion. In this project, we propose to raise the level of abstraction provided to designers of overlays and systems-of-systems. To this end, we are using a generative language approach to overlay design and composition. We will provide the corresponding new programming models, abstractions and tools. Our aim will be reached via the use of a high-level domain-specific language, declaring what should be achieved for the structure and functions of overlays, rather than by defining low-level nodes interactions. The proposed approach will be supported by a dedicated runtime implemented in a distributed systems development and deployment framework. The project follows a prototype-driven approach. It will feature a large-scale demonstrator linking heterogeneous overlays —networked systems and sensor networks—in an integrated manner, with support for adaptive and malleable end-to-end services and functionalities.

An increasing number of different kinds of resources, including everyday objects, are interconnected to each other. Some analysts estimate that around 50 billions of devices should be interconnected at the horizon of 2020. This paves the way for new large-scale systems, and requires the need for novel architectures and design principles to support such a scale. Further, these resources may be very different at both the hardware and software layer, in terms of both functional and non-functional properties. This will lead to system of systems that federate highly heterogeneous distributed systems as already illustrated, for instance, by environmental and earth observation systems. Designing such large, interconnected and heterogeneous systems is a daunting task. A possible way to overcome the complexity of contemporary distributed systems is to leverage overlay networks and their higher level of abstraction. The virtualization of the underlying network resources allows providing a range of reusable network services. Many types of overlay networks have been proposed and developed in the previous years for a variety of networked systems, applications and services. However, the design and development of overlays remains a complex task, especially when dynamic adaptation, large-scale interoperability and composition are required. Adding interoperability, adaptation and composition capabilities often require huge and complex re-engineering of existing overlay implementations. In the context of overlay networks, it also requires appropriate abstractions and runtime support for allowing different type of overlays and structures to be linked, cooperate and provide adaptive interoperable end-to-end services in a dynamic fashion. In this project, we propose to raise the level of abstraction provided to designers of overlays and systems-of-systems. To this end, we are using a generative language approach to overlay design and composition. We will provide the corresponding new programming models, abstractions and tools. Our aim will be reached via the use of a high-level domain-specific language, declaring what should be achieved for the structure and functions of overlays, rather than by defining low-level nodes interactions. The proposed approach will be supported by a dedicated runtime implemented in a distributed systems development and deployment framework. The project follows a prototype-driven approach. It will feature a large-scale demonstrator linking heterogeneous overlays —networked systems and sensor networks—in an integrated manner, with support for adaptive and malleable end-to-end services and functionalities.