Empowering Grids from Planning to Practice

19 November 2025

Brussels

Organised by: RGI

Europe’s electricity grids are undergoing rapid transformation as renewables scale up, electrification accelerates and flexibility plays a growing role across all voltage levels. Ensuring a reliable, efficient and future-proof energy system requires new forms of coordination across planning processes, governance structures and operational practices.
RGI convened stakeholders across the grid value chain to exchange practical insights and accelerate this work.

Organised by RGI at TenneT’s offices, the two-day expert workshop “Empowering Grid from Planning to Practice”, the workshop took place on 19 and 20 November in Brussels.

On Day 1, 18 experts discussed how enhanced coordination between TSOs and DSOs can improve planning and operations, as well as unlock the full potential of flexibility.

Building upon RGI’s previous flexibility worksops (in 2023 and in 2024), Day 2 brought together 21 experts around the Flexibility Needs Assessment (FNA) methodology. It shed light on its provisions, including synergies and methodological links with other national and EU studies, and explored the role and potential of different market actors, alongside enabling conditions.

Key insights from the workshop included:

Strengthening TSO–DSO cooperation is essential for coherent planning across all voltage levels and for unlocking distributed flexibility.
Governance and regulatory alignment remain critical enablers for effective collaboration and system optimisation.
Greater transparency, open data practices and clearer planning roles can help integrate flexibility into both long-term and operational decision-making.
The FNA, while an important mandate, requires careful coordination with existing studies; methodological clarity and improved data flows will be essential.

Participating Organisations: