ERIC-LAB is a practical implementation of a federation of laboratories located in different European member states, enabling a cost-effective sharing of hardware and software facilities with special focus on real-time simulation. It supports the design, concept testing, regulation, technology impact analysis and compliance with network codes testing in the EU path toward smarter electricity systems.

More specifically, it is aimed at studying:

• The consistency of retail and wholesale market regimes.
• System and generation adequacy.
• Challenges and benefits of the integration and deployment of different technologies like storage, electric vehicles and renewable energy sources among others.
• Interoperability and integration of standards.
• Demand side provisions: demand management, peak shaving and incentives.
• Validation of network codes in regards of the coordination between transmission and distribution.
• Impact of cross-border interconnectors.

ERIC-LAB consists in different resources located in any of the federated laboratories interconnected by means of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Resources include real-time computing systems, electrical and electronic components, computers and/or any other hardware or software element that might be used for any given simulation or test. Each local resource is able to interact with the resources in the other laboratories through a dedicated VPN (Virtual Private Network) running over GEANT, which is the high-bandwidth pan-European backbone network that interconnects all National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) across Europe. A cloud service gathers data from any of the participant nodes, processes the information received and presents it for remote monitoring and control. The local VPN servers bridge the local simulation platform at each site and the cloud ensuring the security of the data exchange.

Possible integration of the different sub-systems system (distribution grid, transmission grid, generation, market and consumer behavior) with a holistic approach.

ERIC-LAB has been conceived with the following objectives:

• Soft-sharing of hardware and software facilities within a federation. It allows access to the facilities of other laboratories and the set-up of a multi-site simulation platform. In addition, it allows remote testing of devices by integrating (power) hardware in the loop and remote software-in-the-loop while the target model is simulated in a different lab.
• Enhancing simulation capabilities for large systems. The model can be split and co-simulated several machines in different laboratories.
• Soft-sharing of expertise in a large knowledge-based virtual environment. Different labs may need real time simulation capabilities for different purposes and applications according to their research interests or available experts, while not necessarily each single lab has experts in all fields of power systems. Each federated lab can take advantage the knowledge and expertise of the other partners.
• Keeping susceptible data/model/algorithm confidential. If data or system models are confidential and sharing them with other labs require long authorization and administrative procedure, or even is not allowed, the model can be simulated locally, while exchanging appropriate data or simulation results with the other participating labs through real time co-simulation.