D-NA5.3b Evaluation of the Access Provision Programme

Following the way paved by its predecessor ERIGrid, the main goal of the ERIGrid 2.0 project was to provide on-site and remote lab access to an integrated Research Infrastructure, operated at 21 distributed installations in 11 countries. The ERIGrid 2.0 lab access programme was mainly offered to the European research community, where the need to investigate and validate complex smart grid configurations and smart energy systems is essential. This document summarises the Laboratory Access or short “Lab Access” (i.e., “Trans-national Access’) activity performed in ERIGrid 2.0 from October 2020, when the 1st call for lab access proposals was launched, until the end of the project in April 2025. The report compiles the different calls, proposals received, and their evaluation by the User Selection Panel. Based on this information, an analysis of the degree of accomplishment of the access provision at the partner and project levels is carried out against the demanding access objectives of the project. In addition, ERIGrid 2.0 offered the possibility of Virtual Access to researchers around the world: 10 databases, real-time data or simulation platforms have been made available online and free of charge. This report compiles and evaluates available statistics and metrics on the usage of these online services until April 2025.