Annick Vastiau

VITO (https://vito.be/en), the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (Belgium) and member of knowledge centre EnergyVille (https://www.energyville.be/en). VITO is the largest Flemish technological research organization with a multi-disciplinary team working on sustainable solutions for different research domains like materials, energy and environment. VITO supplies innovative and high-quality solutions, whereby large and small companies can gain a competitive advantage, and advises industry and governments on determining their policy for the future. The business unit Energy Technology focuses on “smart systems for intelligent energy networks” and has a proven track record on research, development and demonstration projects in the field of innovative energy technologies in general, and smart grids and the integration of Renewable Energy Sources in energy systems in particular. The technical expertise in this unit is organized in four complementary research domains: sustainable electrical energy devices; thermal energy systems; algorithms, modelling and optimization; and the energy market research domain. In previous and ongoing projects, VITO developed and demonstrated its competence in power system and energy market modelling tools, grid management tools and associated software containing advanced algorithms and models. VITO/EnergyVille has also practical experience with hardware solutions (e.g. power electronic components) in both lab and real-environment, up to TRL 6/7. VITO is continuously analysing the evolution of power systems and energy markets in order to analyse the impact of technological and new/adapted market design options while investigating potential new business models for smart grids.