The ultimate objective of the XFLEX project is to increase hydropower potential in terms of plant efficiency, availability and provision of flexibility services to the Electric Power System (EPS). The high Renewable Energy Sources (RES) scenario of the decarbonisation process relies on a drastic change of the European Union EPS with a massive integration of non-dispatchable RES and disconnection of the so-called conventional units, as greenhouse gases emitters. These changes influence drastically the provision of the power grid balancing, and challenge the EPS operations and safety. It is of upmost importance to provide reliable solutions to support the EPS with more flexibility services. Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) already significantly supports EPS flexibility in terms of regulation capability, fast frequency control, fast start/stop, fast generating to pumping modes transition, high ramping rate, inertia emulation, fault ride through capacity, etc. XFLEX aims to demonstrate an innovative methodology for system integration of hydroelectric technology solutions, variable speed being a key component and a reference, to provide further enhanced flexibility services assessed by a crosscutting analysis of their impact on both the technology and the market aspects. Innovative solutions also target an optimize maintenance plan to decrease the outage time and increase the availability of the plant. Demonstrations are scheduled in the cases of run-of-river, storage and pumped storage HPPs and they cover cases of refurbished, uprated and especially existing HPP to be applied and scaled to any unit size. XFLEX draws the roadmap for the exploitation of its solutions to all the European HPP fleet. A strategic dissemination plan is set to promote the deployment of the demonstrated solutions to stakeholders, to the scientific community and the public and to further support the communication in workshops, conferences, scientific journals, newspapers and various social media.

With the dramatic growth of renewables, now is the time to revise the VPP concept. VPPs need to support not only the promotion of intermittent renewables (RES) but also the integration of all Distributed Energy Resources (DER) into the full scope of grid operations. Such a leap raises challenges: optimal combination of DER and RES in a new generation of VPPs is needed to jointly provide grid supportive flexibility with slow reaction time known from day-head and intra-day markets, as well as real-time reaction to provide fast frequency and inertial response and dynamic-phasor driven voltage control ancillary services. In a nutshell, in a DER-based power electronics-driven network VPPs need to play all the roles that synchronous machines play in a traditional system. Flexibility can be provided by going beyond electrochemical storage and exploring opportunities offered by Power2X or inverters. Demand Side Management or low-cost solutions such as Power2Heat could be deployed in a neighbourhood expanding the concept of VPPs to the concept of a Local Energy Communities. EdgeFLEX links technical solutions to societal expectations. Short reaction times can be addressed by 5G-powered edge clouds linking dispersed devices in near real-time. In this respect, a new concept of VPPs, with communications corresponding to multiple layers of dynamics, becomes possible. EdgeFLEX proposes a new architecture for VPPs deploying such a multi-layer solution, paving the way for a fully renewable energy system. VPPs are brought to a new level, enabling them to interact on markets offering various ancillary services to System Operators. EdgeFLEX will develop this next generation VPP concept and demonstrate it in the context of 3 field trials and lab tests. It will explore innovative optimisations, financial tools and business scenarios for VPPs and assess the economic and societal impact. It will actively work to remove barriers by contributing to standards and European level regulation.