SynGRID Workshop: From Lessons Learned to Greater Impact of European Projects

On 31 August 2026, Petrol d.d., Ljubljana hosted a workshop titled “From experience to impact: project learning workshop – What worked, what next?”, dedicated to sharing knowledge, experience, and good practices gained through European research and innovation projects. The workshop highlighted project challenges and reflected on what could be done differently to help project results take root more effectively in practice and in business environments. The event was organised as part of the European project SynGRID, whose main aim is to build on innovation by leveraging and upgrading the results of completed Horizon 2020 projects and ongoing Horizon Europe projects.

Participants were welcomed by Karina Medved Bregar, Head of EU Affairs and Projects at Petrol, who stressed the importance of cooperation between industry, research organisations, and the energy sector in developing innovative solutions for the energy transition. Uroš Kocjan, Head of the Market Flexibility Management Department at Petrol, and Dr Tomi Medved from the Institute for Innovation and Development of the University of Ljubljana, then presented lessons learned from the completed projects X-FLEX and COMPILE. They placed particular emphasis on the results achieved, implementation challenges, suggestions for improvement, and opportunities to transfer knowledge to future projects and business practices.

This was followed by a presentation from Dr Hrvoje Pandžić, professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, who highlighted the importance of translating research results into real-world settings and the role of pilot demonstrations in verifying the effectiveness of new energy solutions. He placed particular emphasis on addressing battery optimisation challenges.

In the second part of the workshop, participants focused on transferring knowledge to currently active Horizon Europe projects. Dr Bernard Ženko, research associate at the Jožef Stefan Institute, and Anton Kos from Elektro Celje d.d. presented how lessons from past projects are being successfully incorporated into the European project SEEDS, contributing to the development of new solutions in energy and smart grids. SEEDS builds on the consortium’s extensive experience in developing, testing, and validating solutions for the decarbonisation of smart buildings in real-world settings and the introduction of energy flexibility; Petrol participates in the project as a partner with five test locations at points of sale.

Through expert discussion, participants addressed future challenges and development opportunities in the areas of energy flexibility, flexibility resource management, and the integration of advanced energy technologies. The experiences and insights exchanged will provide an important basis for the further development of projects supporting the decarbonisation of the energy system and contributing to European targets for electrification, renewable energy, and smart energy grids, in line with the recently published European Electrification Action Plan.