SUNVIBE

The SUNVIBE project delivers the next generation of smart PV inverters to ensure the secure, reliable and cost-effective integration of renewable energy into Europe’s grids. The rapid replacement of synchronous generators with inverter-based resources has reduced system inertia and exposed grids to new stability risks, as demonstrated by the 2025 Iberian blackout, while the massive deployment of PV, from utility-scale plants to self-consumption systems, raises concerns around interoperability, power quality and resilience. To address these challenges, SUNVIBE pioneers advanced SiC-based inverter topologies that enable operation at ≥2 kV and direct MV connection, alongside a unique 100 kW bidirectional four-wire inverter combining grid-forming and grid-following capabilities for enhanced power quality and harmonic mitigation. Integrated condition and health monitoring supports predictive maintenance and lifetime extension, while a harmonised data space and a real-time cybersecurity platform ensure interoperability and secure operation across DER assets. Innovative control algorithms provide synthetic inertia, dynamic current injection and coordinated PV–storage flexibility services, reducing curtailments and deferring costly grid reinforcements. The solutions are validated up to TRL 7 across three complementary pilots in Finland, France and Spain, demonstrating replicability under diverse conditions, while a consortium of 15 partners from 8 EU countries (RTOs, universities, manufacturers, SMEs, DSOs and dissemination experts) ensures strong implementation, industrial uptake and alignment with EUPI-PV priorities.

ITI-CERTH contributes to the project’s SSbD framework, so that SUNVIBE’s power electronics solutions are secure by design, being responsible for the cybersecurity aspects: embedding security at every system level, from hardware to cloud infrastructure, through multi-layered AI/ML-based intrusion detection, secure hardware elements such as Trusted Platform Modules, secure boot processes and encrypted communications (e.g. TLS). In addition, ITI develops local PV–storage coordination strategies for reducing grid and RES production losses in congested substations, aiming at the optimal integration of PV parks and energy storage systems into distribution networks. Based on detailed distribution network models built from real grid data and future forecasts, simulations quantify the techno-economic benefits of storage (reduced curtailment, improved substation utilisation, deferred grid reinforcements, lower technical losses), while advanced control strategies balance grid support with market participation, leveraging smart inverters, ‘virtual batteries’ (software-defined energy storage), forecasting and machine learning. These strategies will be applied in the Finnish and French pilots. Finally, ITI contributes to the development of the cybersecurity risk detection and simulation tool for PV infrastructures, which combines real-time threat detection through machine learning-based anomaly detection with the simulation of cyberattack scenarios, providing mitigation strategies and supporting compliance with standards such as IEC 62443.

Consortium

Fundacion CIRCE Centro de Investigacion de Recursos y Consumos Energeticos, Spain
R& I Centre of Excellence for Intelligent, Efficient and Sustainable Energy Solutions, PHAETHON Ltd, Cyprus
Ethniko Kentro Erevnas kai Technologikis Anaptyxis, Greece
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu Oy, Finland
Hitachi Energy Power Conversion Solutions, S.L., Spain
SuperGrid Institute, France
Vectortech SLU, Spain
Solarigo Systems Oy, Finland
Electricite de France, France
CNET Centre for New Energy Technologies SA, Portugal
Digital Development Technologies Idiotiki Kefalaiouchiki Etaireia, Greece
Suite5 Data Intelligence Solutions Limited, Cyprus
Wirtschaft und Infrastruktur GmbH & Co Planungs KG, Germany
EPIA SolarPower Europe, Belgium