Patrick Devos manages innovator zones "MicroGrids" & "Energy Cloud Platforms" 

3 quick questions to... Patrick Devos

What makes you the right person to manage the innovator zones Microgrids and Energy Cloud Platforms?

I have over 35 years of experience in the Energy World. I’ve done exploitation management of a classical generation plant (coal, gas, fuel) and maintenance management of the transmission network, so the high voltage grid has no secrets for me. From 1988 to 2004, I held different management functions (design and building new investments, exploitation, marketing and sales, customer care), that provided me with knowledge and experience of the distribution network, as a basis to build on while exploring microgrids.
As CIO of the ‘Meter Reading Company’ in the liberalized market, I was responsible for the Meter Data Management System (MDM), that can be considered as an early precursor of today’s energy cloud platforms. In my career, I’ve discovered the urgent need to avoid climate change by durability, RES integration and change in human behavior.      

“It’s a ‘divide et impera’-method to stabilize the grid”

Why are you passionate about these topics?  

I believe every creature has the right to live in a healthy environment. If we want to meet the EU 2050 objectives, we can’t do without microgrids or energy cloud platforms. They play an essential role in the energy transition. To lower the greenhouse gases, we need to stop almost all burning processes and integrate RES into the electricity networks. The intermittent character of RES, however, poses challenges to net management - instability, congestion, brown-outs and black-outs… These challenges can only be met by using smart grids and performant energy and net management systems, fed by data from smart meters and smart sensors. Energy cloud platforms will allow new players to use energy related data to design innovative applications for grid operators, suppliers, ESCO’s, aggregators, prosumers, consumers and other stakeholders. Another way to achieve net stability is to create stability in smaller circuits of the network. Using the method of ‘divide et impera’, the smart grid can be stabilized by making it into a collection of such balanced microgrids. 

What is currently happening in the two innovator zones that you coordinate?  

In Flux50’s first feasibility study call, 6 microgrid projects and 2 energy cloud platform projects were deemed eligible for funding. Since collaboration and knowledge-sharing are so essential to the cluster’s way of working, we will organize 4 working groups with microgrid projects and projects from other innovator zones combined. These working groups are (1) flexibility, (2) regulation, (3) data management and (4) customer engagement. The working group ‘data management’ collaborates with the innovator zone Energy Cloud Platforms. At the moment Flux50 is facilitating these studies and following-up on the working packages (planning, finance, deliverables). A second call for feasibility studies has just been launched.