ENTEG participates in groundbreaking UTOPYS Consortium for energy system research

The University of Groningen (UG), through its Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen (ENTEG), is a key partner in the Understanding Large and Complex Power Systems (UTOPYS) consortium. This groundbreaking project, led by TU Delft, has been awarded a €16.5 million grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to develop the world’s largest research cluster for real-time energy system studies.

A first-of-its-kind research infrastructure
UTOPYS will establish a unique, large-scale infrastructure capable of dynamically modeling complex energy systems. This advanced platform will allow researchers to replicate entire national grids and simulate technologies that do not yet exist, enabling a leap forward in understanding the behavior of future energy networks. This platform will enable researchers to simulate and study future energy networks, addressing critical challenges such as cyber-physical dynamics, hidden instability, complex controller interactions, swarm behaviour, and cyber vulnerabilities; aspects that are nearly impossible to test in real grids!

UTOPYS provides an unprecedented environment for testing and validating control and optimization algorithms at scale. Researchers will be able to evaluate the robustness and performance of novel grid control strategies within a safe, high-fidelity digital twin of the electricity system. This will drive scientific breakthroughs in the development of reliable, secure, and adaptive control architectures that are essential for the integration of renewable and distributed energy resources.

Strengthening the Netherlands’ leadership in energy research
The NWO grant for UTOPYS highlights the Netherlands’ leadership in advancing energy system innovation. Bringing together eight Dutch universities and SURF, the IT cooperative for education and research, UTOPYS bridges disciplines such as power systems, computer science, mathematics, systems and control theory, energy economics, and law. All results will be shared through open-source models and data, fostering collaboration across academia, industry, and policymakers.

By creating a digital infrastructure for experimentation and validation, the project will strengthen the Netherlands’ position as a European and global frontrunner in developing resilient, secure, and sustainable energy systems. UTOPYS will not only deepen scientific understanding but also inform the design of real-world policies and technologies that support the energy transition.

How UTOPYS advances ENTEG’s research in sustainable energy
Professors Michele Cucuzzella, Nima Monshizadeh and Ashish Cherukuri played a pivotal role in the success of the consortium. For ENTEG, participation in UTOPYS perfectly aligns with its mission to advance sustainable and intelligent energy systems through interdisciplinary research. The project provides a powerful testbed for developing and validating hierarchical, robust, and data-driven control methods that ensure stability, reliability, and optimal performance in future grids. By bridging physical modeling, control theory, and data science, ENTEG’s contribution will play a key role in realizing the next generation of adaptive and resilient energy networks.

Michele Cucuzzella , associate professor and Twin Transition coordinator at the Jantina Tammes School and Wubbo Ockels School of UG: “UTOPYS represents a huge step forward for researchers working on robust control and optimization of energy systems. For the first time, we will be able to test advanced control and optimization algorithms in a realistic, large-scale digital twin, which is simply impossible to do on the real grid. This is a special tool that will also help us understand and prevent complex phenomena such as the recent blackout in Spain, as well as use the vast amount of generated data to design smarter (data-driven) control and optimization strategies.”

For more information:

• Link to news of consortium (TU Delft)
• Link to RUG news item