INESC-ID has consolidated critical knowledge and technologies to meet the engineering challenges of energy transition. Our research capabilities, combined with our experience in supporting public entities and the industry, place us in a privileged position to support the government in developing public policies for the energy sector, in particular for the power systems’ necessary transition towards sustainability.

The practice of research and applying its results to develop new technologies enables us to anticipate possibilities in the near future, how it can be achieved, and at what cost. More importantly, it enables us to distinguish between tangible and elusive goals—a crucial aspect of decision-making in times of noisy information, typical of transitional periods.

At INESC-ID, we recently established response capacity limits for populations of electricity consumers to provide energy balance services. Our efforts included modeling grid efficiency and assessing low-voltage losses with unprecedented detail to establish limitations in reducing delivery losses in the Portuguese mainland. For the first time, we evaluated the entire Portuguese grid’s reliability, using high-resolution results (100,000 delivery points) to set the ceiling for improving the regulatory standards for service continuity. We contribute to the effective use of renewables by pioneering adjustable speed drive applications, enabling wind generators to operate close to their maximum efficiency. We also lead projects evaluating large-scale integration of photovoltaic systems and develop new power electronic converters to facilitate this integration. Additionally, we are involved in advancing new solutions for energy storage, actively collaborating with industry to integrate these solutions into the grid, while assessing power quality and reliability related issues.