Presentations and report from the first Best Paths workshop, Paris

The NCI Com’square conference centre in Paris hosted the first BEST PATHS dissemination workshop, “Innovative Network Technologies and the Future of Europe’s Electricity Grid”, on Thursday 5 November 2015. Nearly 100 international experts attended, among them EU policy makers, researchers and industry representatives. It was the first of a series of dissemination events planned once a year. The partners presented the project’s approach and its first-year results and discussed with participants how market dynamics, policy and technology relate.

The project published the slides of each talk together with a short summary report. The speakers were:

• Vicente González López, project coordinator, Red Eléctrica de España: introduction to the project;
• Roberto Veguillas, Iberdrola: Demonstration 1, multi-terminal HVDC links in offshore wind farms;
• Claude Counan, Réseau de Transport d’Électricité: Demonstration 2, multivendor interoperability;
• Massimo Marzinotto, Terna Rete Italia: Demonstration 3, upgrading multi-terminal HVDC interconnectors;
• Vanessa Gombert, 50Hertz Transmission: Demonstration 4, innovative repowering of AC corridors;
• Eric Bruzek, Nexans: Demonstration 5, DC superconducting links;
• Frank Schettler, Siemens: status of the CENELEC “Guidelines and Parameter Lists for Functional Specifications for HVDC Grid Systems”.

Each of the five demonstration talks has a matching explainer among the demonstration pages, from HVDC links for offshore wind to superconducting cables; the project that began reporting here in 2015 ran until September 2018.