Eco-SESA Program

Funded by IDEX Grenoble-Alpes (1,7 M€, ANR-15-IDEX-02), the Eco-SESA program ran from 2017 to 2021.

As our societies face the challenges of climate change, renewable energies are confronting the standard – centralized, unidirectional – operating mode of urban grids and the relationship of individuals and communities to energy at large.

Based on observations at the building and district scales, the project Eco-SESA aims to produce knowledge, concepts, tools and methods to re-think the planning, management and governance of urban energy systems, as well as the design of their components. To reach Safe, Efficient, Sustainable and Accessible energy, these contributions will be shared with the scientific communities and the city and energy stakeholders.

The project addresses 5 key objectives to integrate on-the-spot renewable energy generation in urban areas:

• Understanding the effects of massive deployment of variable renewable energies
• Assessing the effects of self-consumption
• Comprehending and predicting the behavior of consumers and of district stakeholders
• Governing and coordinating energy at the district/urban scale
• Designing adequate energy components

The integrated system approach is structured around 5 tightly related emerging Research Fronts linked to scientific communities working on energy fields:

1. Interactive systems to involve occupants of buildings
2. Emerging behaviors from individual to communities
3. Interactions modeling between buildings and with grids in a district
4. Architectures for integration of renewable on-the-spot generation (ROG)
5. Components and materials: specifications for a proper integration into systems

A cross-disciplinary approach has the potential to generate innovation in ways a mono-disciplinary framework cannot: e.g. coupling MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) with end-users’ practices, or designing smart systems regarding the strategies of building and network decision-makers. Besides achieving innovative products/services that can be quickly deployed on a large scale, Eco-SESA expands cross-disciplinary know-how to help laboratories working with international consortia.

SmartCities demonstration projects are fast developing worldwide with a variety of objectives and specificities that depend on the stakeholders. Besides French energy transition institutes and R&D clusters, Eco-SESA will create more generic knowledge and more adaptive tools taking into account the value chain, from individuals to local communities. What’s more, Grenoble is one of the main research centers in the world on energy technologies.

The Eco-SESA project will comprehensively take into account the societal challenges of the energy transition, extend the notoriety of Grenoble in social sciences, increase the capacity to develop deployable innovations and, hence, strengthen Grenoble’s worldwide leadership in the field.

Eco-SESA is one of the 7 first Cross-Disciplinary Projects of the Univ. Grenoble Alpes: University of Innovation an IDEX project awarded the “Initiative of Excellence” label, a label reserved for only ten universities in France.