We met Charles Esser, Secretary General at European Distribution System Operators (E.DSO) to provide 2025 updates on the vital work of E.DSO.
E.DSO is the key interface between Europe’s Distribution System Operators (DSOs) and the European institutions. E.DSO gathers 36 leading electricity DSOs in 19 countries, including 2 national associations, cooperating to ensure the reliability of Europe’s electricity supply for consumers and enabling their active participation in our energy system.
Ben Lane:
Thank you for joining us today, Charles. We are looking forward to a great Critical Infrastructure Protection & Resilience Europe conference in Brindisi, October 14-16, 2025 https://www.cipre-expo.com/
We spoke last year about the work of E.DSO in general terms, and this time we would like to talk to you about key highlights at E.DSO so far this year.
Charles Esser:
Thanks for inviting me to do this interview. I was pleased to attend CIPRE last year in Madrid.
One of our biggest highlights this year is our Innovation Summit held in February. The E.DSO 1st ‘FutureGrid Innovation Summit’ gathered more than two hundred representatives from industry, companies, associations, EU institutions, projects, NGOs, and Member States.
As part of the Summit, the ‘Innovation Sparks’ exhibition showcased impactful technologies and EU-funded projects, namely BeFlexible, COPPER, ECLIPSE, and TwinEU, which are driving change and making a significant impact on society.
Further reading: https://www.edsoforsmartgrids.eu/events/e-dso-futuregrid-innovation-summit/ –
Next year’s Summit will be held on 11 February on Brussels: https://futuregridinnovation.eu/
This year we also decided to start two new groups: one is a specialized group to look at how to ensure mutual assistance between DSOs. This relates to resilience, because when emergencies happen such as storms, fires, whatever it could be, oftentimes a single DSO or even multiple DSOs in that country cannot cope. This prompted us to create a more organized and structured approach when DSOs face the need to have workers and equipment from other DSOs, and particularly DSOs from other countries.
Another big achievement has been starting a group focusing on health and safety. We tend to focus on things such as digitalization or policy. Or we focus on European projects, which are of course important. But the health and safety of employees, and the public, around electrical installations is also vital. We held an internal workshop in May with about forty employees from different DSOs from around Europe, and that was the catalyst for a new working group on health and safety. We looked at it from all kinds of perspectives, including using artificial intelligence to enhance safety.
We also contributed to the European Parliament regarding their own initiative report on electricity grids and this is important because that will feed into what the European Commission is going to propose in December with its upcoming Grids package.
We have also updated our Success Cases and our Technology Radar. We now have technological Success Cases, customer empowerment Success Cases, and human resources/skills Success Cases.
Ben Lane:
Thanks for explaining your highlights this year. Please can you provide more details around your Success Cases.
Charles Esser:
E.DSO members are always looking to improve themselves, modernize themselves, and do everything better, whether it is in management, operation, network planning or consumer interaction.
One of our committees that focuses on technology and knowledge sharing launched an initiative we call Success Cases that takes concrete cases of how DSOs effectively put into practice technological innovation to overcome current and emerging challenges in the power system.
This initiative is planning to exemplify the effectiveness of forward-looking strategies and tackle the needs of European power grids and novel technological applications in achieving our goals with grids.
It is also looking to stimulate innovation in other areas distribution network operations, such as in developing skills. It is a knowledge sharing tool at its heart, and we are trying to show tangible benefits that are delivered for the DSO and its customers.
Ben Lane:
Thank you, please share a couple of examples of Success Cases.
Charles Esser:
Certainly, I will share a couple related to addressing resilience. One example I will share is by Enedis, which is the DSO for 95% of France. Enedis has created a mobile primary substation; an electrical substation kit which is a complete substation that can be placed onto transport, on trailers, and connected in two to three days. So instead of waiting weeks to repair a substation, you can install a temporary mobile primary substation rapidly, and it is in place, and it is working, which means you can take the time to do the repairs that are necessary on the permanent substation.
Another one of our Success Cases that I will highlight is from the DSO for Greece, HEDNO. They are using LiDAR data, which is light detection and ranging data, with artificial intelligence to build a 3D model of the distribution network. With this type of model, what they are doing to increase resilience is simulate how all the network components will react under severe weather conditions and wildfires, and identify which assets will suffer damage, or even ignite, and how to react to those issues. So, it is a tool for increasing resilience on the grid and using artificial intelligence and a digital 3D model of the grid.
Further reading https://www.edsoforsmartgrids.eu/success-cases/
Ben Lane:
Great, thank you. Finally, can you explain the Technology Radar?
Charles Esser:
Our DSOs look at the future and say, what is going on? There is so much uncertainty, there are lots of developments. What are these technologies? Are they relevant for us? When will they be relevant?
To help our members prepare, we created the Technology Radar (see graphic below), and the idea is to evaluate technological topics that have a potential impact on DSOs and their ecosystem. The objectives are early identification of new technologies, technological trends, increased awareness of opportunities and threats associated with emerging technological developments. Some of these technologies, such as Edge Computing and Digital Twins, can contribute to strengthening DSOs’ resilience.
Further reading: https://www.edsoforsmartgrids.eu/e-dso-publishes-its-technology-radar/
Ben Lane:
Thank you, Charles, we look forward to hearing more about the work of E.DSO in the future!
Charles Esser:
Thank you for the opportunity.