Infineon Technologies co-ordinated the project, which has now been successfully completed. In total 29 project partners from nine European countries participated.

The research project began in 2012. Half of the total budget (approximately €32million) was contributed by the project partners. The European Commission initiative ECSEL JU contributed nearly €5.2million and the participating project partners’ countries of origin contributed €10.5 million to the project.

The research results of the E2SG project will allow for a more sustainable energy production and more efficient energy conversion in the smart grid. For example, a bi-directional voltage converter – with an efficiency of over 96% – will facilitate the efficient power supply of electricity from different energy sources. This supports the use of renewable energies and makes the power supply more flexible and, by extension, more stable.

By using optimised MOSFET power switches with over 10% lower on-resistance in voltage transformers such as power supplies and converters, together with advanced high voltage technology, power and conversion losses can be reduced. This saves power and reduces CO2 emissions.

The increasingly communicative networking in the smart grid also requires reliable security solutions to protect the data from unauthorised access. One of the E2SG project components was the development of new security controllers. These use advanced encryption of the data exchange to significantly increase the security in the smart grid.

The E2SG project won the ENIAC Innovation Award at the European Nanoelectronics Forum 2015, in Berlin in December.