New consortium works on standardization of high-voltage direct current

Postdoc Ceciel Nieuwenhout is part of a new consortium (Ready4DC) that will coordinate standardization between various providers and clients of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) infrastructure. Within the project, she will focus on the legal aspects of cooperation. This includes, for example, the question of how the manufacturers and commissioning parties can exchange sufficient (business-sensitive) information to be able to standardize without running into problems with competition law or intellectual property rights. And what kind of coordination structure can be put in place to steer such a process in the right direction.

Nieuwenhout: 'At the moment, everyone still maintains their own standards and their own communication systems, but that will not work when we start building a large HVDC electricity grid, for example in the North Sea'. This was also the subject of Nieuwenhout's dissertation.

Ready4DC is a Coordination & Support Action (CSA) receiving funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. Consortiumpartners are: RWTH Aachen University, ENTSO-E, T&D EUROPE, WINDEUROPE, Tennet TSO GmbH, SuperGrid Institute and the University of Groningen.

This article was published by the Faculty of Law.