Blog- Welcome to our stories

UTOPYS Awarded!

We at the Center for Energy System Intelligence (CESI) are pleased to announce that the large Dutch consortium project “Understanding Large and Complex Power Systems (UTOPYS)” was funded! This €16.5 million is funded through the Large-Scale Research Infrastructure (LSRI) program of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). project enables researchers to set up the world's largest research cluster for real-time research into energy systems. Led by principal investigator Peter Palensky of Delft University of Technology and coordinated by PowerWeb Institute Lily Li and Alex Neagu, UTOPYS consists of eight Dutch knowledge institutions and SURF, the IT cooperative for education and research. Leonie Reins, professor of Public Law and Sustainability at Erasmus School of Law, and EUR Scientific Lead of CESI Yashar Ghiassi-Farrokhfal of Rotterdam School of Management and EUR Scientific Lead of CESI, are involved in the consortium project. CESI is proud to have contributed to the success of UTOPYS. Leonie and Yashar were part of the core writing and interview team, Mathijs provided invaluable support during the mock interview, and CESI has long supported the PowerWeb annual conference. The collaborative spirit between CESI and PowerWeb has been truly encouraging!

This unique platform will enable the investigation of crucial phenomena to understand and create innovative solutions for problems like cyber-physical dynamics, hidden instability modes, complex interactions between controllers, swarm behavior, and cyber vulnerabilities – all important challenges that future energy scientists will need to master. Join us in congratulating Leonie and Yashar for their efforts and hard work on this team. We are so proud of them!

Introducing EnergySHR

EnergySHR, a new platform for managing data and building projects related to the global energy transition. The energy transition is the strategic, planned reduction on fossil fuels and coal for alternative, renewable resources. This transition is reliant on data, software, algorithms, and people across many areas working in collaboration to solve problems. Some problems include:

  • energy communities: managing energy resources and tools as well as facilitating communication between members and other communities for peer to peer energy trading, consumption, production, and more
  • energy justice: recognizing and working towards a fair and affordable global energy system that balances burdens and benefits for energy consumption and production
  • energy markets: tracking trends and creating models for day-before, day-of, and other types of trading of energy through modeling and forecasting
  • grid congestion: the imbalance of supply and demand of electricity at any given time
  • energy poverty: the lack of affordable energy for daily activities
  • heating and cooling: focusing on individual and district level systems that are low cost and sustainable
  • home energy management: the development, management, deployment, and monitoring of energy production and consumption in residences
  • privacy and security: focusing on residences, commercial spaces, energy communities, DSOs, TSOs, to identify ways to keep disaggregated energy system data protected
  • storage: storing energy produced from batteries, solar, hydrogen, geothermal, wind, and more
  • transportation: using AI and IoT to create more reliable and sustainable travel systems
In order to address the growing reliance on data, increase transparency, and reduce redundancy in project development, the Center for Energy System Intelligence (CESI), a Convergence AI, Data, and Digitalization collaboration between TU Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam, has developed EnergySHR, a platform where researchers and partners involved in the energy transition can share, publish, and/or find energy-related datasets and algorithms and develop partnerships with other researchers, industry partners, NGOs, and grid managers. The platform was built by the Erasmus Center for Data Analytics. While there are several EU-level projects designed to access data like IntNET, OMEGA-X, EDDIE, Enershare, Synergies, and Data cellar, these sites are mostly energy market management and trading platforms. EnergySHR is designed to house data, models, algorithms, simulations, links, and more relating to solar, pv, ev, charging, building management and upgrades, wind, and people. manage data with versions and updates, connect data to projects, and collaborate with researchers within and across disciplines.

EnergySHR, was designed and deployed using sustainable software engineering and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reproducible) principles of open data. These are sustainable software engineering principles for all open science projects. In accordance with the FAIR principles of data, users of EnergySHR, whether they are researchers or industry partners can upload their energy-related datasets. Each user maintains ownership and management of their datasets. This means users can select if datasets are available publicly, to friends on the platform, or restricted. In the Create Project section, users can add one or more datasets along with collaborators to build , and select from relevant license types with the aim of facilitating connections, building networks, and developing new, innovative projects while reducing redundancy in study design. What we hope to accomplish:

  • Adoption of the platform
  • Using the platform to develop projects with others, internationally
  • Develop a safe space for marginalized and exploited groups to share their data safely, in ways that benefit them
  • Work with communities interested in uploading data in accordance with the CARE Principles

We also are designing a Collections feature that enables users to share management rights and add new datasets with other users. This feature is ideal for labs and research groups who work with specific datasets over years. We want to be the place that people come to for their energy data needs. If you have any questions about EnergySHR or would like a demo, please contact Alicia Takaoka at takaoka@rsm.nl.

  • Energy Data Sharing House

    • ACM e-Energy 2025

    ACM e-Energy 2025 was held in Rotterdam from 17-20 June, and CESI's own Yashar Ghiassi-Farrokhfal was one of the General Chairs. This event was a success with record attendance! Attendees from over 25 countries across five continents came to present their energy-related research. Photos of the event can be found at

  • The e-Energy 2025 album
    • .
  • 2025 ACM e-Energy Conference website