Power and Energy Systems

About the Centre

The Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES) is a global reference in the large-scale integration of renewable-based electricity generation into the power system.

We research and develop advanced solutions that enable the monitoring, control, optimisation, and forecasting of electricity production and consumption, as well as multi-energy systems. Our work supports the decarbonisation of the energy system, the electrification of society, and the large-scale integration of renewables, making power grids more flexible, intelligent, and resilient.

Our research results include models, methodologies, hardware, and software (much of it open source) designed for various energy sector stakeholders, including citizens, communities, service providers, system operators, regulators, policy-makers, and governmental bodies.

We operate a Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles Laboratory – the X-Energy Lab (link) – where we validate technological advancements in real-world conditions, ensuring that our solutions have a tangible impact on the energy sector.

Thanks to our expertise, we hold a prominent role in both national and international projects supporting the energy transition, while also providing direct services to key players in the electricity sector.

Centre Areas

Power system planning reliability & resilience

This area addresses the power system decision problems associated with the expansion of generation, transmission and distribution lines and their respective operation, through the development of models and tools able to minimize investment and operation costs, while maintaining a high level of reliability. This includes the support to security of supply evaluation, where new concepts and tools are being developed to cope with the power system transition issues. This involves strong cooperation with the TSO and government bodies. The development of reliability analysis methodologies led to a theoretical basis that can be used to build new models associated to resilience evaluation and improvement, for selected examples of extreme cases generated from climate change situations.

Network operation, management & automation

We conduct pioneering research to design and integrate advanced computational tools for network management systems across all voltage levels. Our efforts are directed towards the development of next-generation solutions for network automation, protection, control, and digitalisation, leveraging emerging technologies in the fields of AI, Digital Twins, edge computing, and optimisation. These solutions address challenges aimed at enhancing grid performance, facilitating the integration of renewable energy, optimising EV charging infrastructures, and improving both real-time and predictive operations. We have established strong collaborations with other research entities and with the industry, being a renowned partner for providing highly specialised consultancy services and licensing software tools.

Electricity markets & regulation

The Area of Electricity Markets and Regulation focuses on understanding the dynamics of current electricity markets and price formation to support industry stakeholders and new market participants in adapting their short- and long-term strategies to improve efficiency and competitiveness. It also involves rethinking existing market structures and designing innovative frameworks to promote greater market participation and unlock the flexibility of both central and distributed resources, while ensuring their financial sustainability. Developing market models is essential for addressing market challenges, testing new market structures, and enabling continuous adaptation to evolving contexts, including local and regional market integration, power system decentralisation, varying decision timeframes, emerging resources, and new products and system services.

Multi-carrier energy systems

The Multi-Energy Networks area leads the development of integrated modelling, simulation and optimisation of electricity, gas, heating/cooling and mobility systems. Our work enables holistic planning and operation of multi-vector energy networks, supporting energy transition goals. We develop advanced decision-support tools, tailored optimisation algorithms and technical-economic models for power-to-gas, power-to-heat, storage and electric mobility. Our expertise empowers retailers/aggregators, network operators and energy systems’ planners to maximise value across energy and carbon markets, ensuring smarter and more sustainable infrastructures.

Demand-side energy management

The Demand Side Energy Management (DSEM) area at INESC TEC advances the efficient use of energy on the consumer side, focusing on innovation from early research to near-market applications (TRL 7–8). It applies work across transportation, industry, and buildings, leveraging in-house tools for energy management and interoperability. Key activities include smart home management solutions, EV smart charging strategies and mobility, supporting energy-intensive industries through digital twins, renewable energy communities’ management tools, data spaces integration, developing building energy systems integrating demand response applications, for flexible distributed energy resources, e.g., batteries and smart appliances. Collaboration with European initiatives boosts international visibility, while digitalisation, behavioural change, and legislative compliance drive impact. DSEM’s mission is to shape a more sustainable, flexible, and consumer-responsive energy system.

RES & storage integration

The RES & storage integration area activities focus on the challenges of decarbonisation through the integration of renewable energy sources on isolated and interconnected power systems. This area explores the evaluation of RES & storage integration through: power system analyses in steady-state and dynamic stability, the development of advanced control strategies to mitigate the integration impact, the development of grid-code compliance analysis, and ultimately, on the development of managing algorithms applied to energy storage and hybrid systems.

Software fabric

The Software Fabric area fosters the collaboration between researchers from informatics, computer science, and power systems to industrialise and demonstrate cutting-edge software solutions. By integrating research insights and industry practices, it accelerates the transition from academic innovation to real-world applications - enabling advanced simulations, optimisations, and the development of scalable, industry-ready tools for modern energy challenges.