 Good afternoon, everyone. You're all very welcome to this IAEA ESB webinar. We'll just maybe give a couple of seconds for people, the connections to be made. Okay, this is the first webinar of the 2020 ESB IAEA lecture series entitled Rethink Energy, and the webinar is also being live-streamed on the IAEA's YouTube page. I want to particularly thank the ESB for their sponsorship of this event, and we're really delighted today to be joined by Christian Buschel, Chairman of the European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids, who's been generous enough to take time out of his schedule to speak with us. Let me first introduce the head of the Irish DSO, Patty Hayes, Managing Director of ESB Networks. Patty. Thanks Owen, and hello everyone. On behalf of ESB Networks, I'm delighted to add my welcome to the Rethink Energy Lecture Series for 2020. I'm also particularly delighted that Christian Buschel has made the time to share his insights with us as the Chair of the European DSO Association for Smart Grids. Christian provides real leadership to a European Association whose member companies serve 350 million electricity customers in over 24 countries. Christian is acknowledged as one of the foremost thinkers with regard to the role and the future development of distribution systems, and I'm honored to be welcoming him to Rethink Energy. So at ESB Networks, as many of you know, we believe that a key aspect of our purpose is to connect and accommodate more renewables to the network, working very closely with our colleagues in air grid so that the electricity system can be decarbonized. In fact, that's working together very successfully. I saw from Iway yesterday that the first five months of 2020, Ireland had over 40% of its electricity coming from wind. So our purpose not only includes connecting new renewables to the system, but it also includes facilitating wholesale electrification so that the clean electricity can be used as a vector to decarbonize transport heat in the economy. Decarbonization through clean electricity is one of the most tangible and significant pillars of climate action and one that demands a transformation in our distribution system. So we have a wonderful world-class electricity distribution system, but facilitating climate action means that we need to transform it to do things that were never envisaged, things that it was never designed to do, and that transformation is both important and exciting. Just to touch briefly, last week, the Commission for Utility Regulation published for public consultation plans for PR5. That's a critical investment in the distribution system for the period of 2021 to 2025. On depending those investments, CRU called out shared objectives for PR5, and those include facilitating and securing a low-carbon future, increasing efficiency and protecting customers, of course, but also specifically transforming the role of the distribution system. And detailed in the consultation documents, you can see aspects of the transmission system transformation that we anticipate over the next five years and beyond. Those include continued investment in smart metering and other digital solutions, further development of active system management, and the neutral facilitation of system services, enabling micro-generation and other decentralized customer and community developments, and investments in the low-voltage network to facilitate the decarbonization of lead and transport. The title of today's talk brought to mind to me a book by Michael Shield from about 30 years ago was called The Quiet Revolution. That book described the electrification of rural Ireland, which is a truly significant time in Ireland's societal and economic development. For the revolution that Christian is going to describe to us today, I think is just as significant. It's incredible to think how far we've come since the days of rural electrification, but the period of change we're entering into now will be just as radical and just as important for our customers, our economy, our society, and our future. So I'm really looking forward to Christian's talk and the discussion that it engenders. But first of all, I'll hand back now to Professor Lewis. Thanks so much. Thanks very much, Paddy. Thank you. Just to give you an idea of the shape of things, Christian will speak to us for about 20 minutes or so and then we'll go to a Q&A with you, the audience. You'll be able to join that discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom. So you see that at the bottom of your screen. Don't please try to use the chat. That won't work. And I'd encourage you to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you, and then we'll come to them once Christian has finished his presentation. You also feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. I should remind you that both the presentation today and the Q&A are on the record. Now, if I turn to Christian Bouchel, chairman as you know, chairman of the European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids, EEDSO, the European Association representing the leading electricity distribution system companies. He's a member of the Board of Energy, France's largest electricity provider, where he's also director of market development, customer relations and territories and concessions activities. Before this, Christian Bouchel held various top management positions within the EDS group. He's been chief operations officer of Energie Baden-Wottenberg in Germany, and CEO of Electricité de Strasbourg. So it's my great pleasure to introduce Christian Bouchel on the smart grid revolution. Christian. Thank you very much Professor Lévis. A great pleasure for me and first of all a warm welcome from the east part of France and not far away from Strasbourg. You just mentioned the heart of the parliament. I would like to express a deep thank you to the Institute of International and European Affairs, to you Professor Lévis, and to my colleague and friend, Padi Ice, for organizing these webinar and these times. I'm glad and honored to have this opportunity. It has been just said distribution system operators are moving fast, really fast, and my colleague Padi Ice as managing director is very active in our association Padi Ice. Thanks very much. You mentioned some figures, impressive figures. It's a reality. It's already a reality in Ireland. So wonderful country. Yes, the energy transition is an ongoing reality, but it's the case all over Europe. Yes, with some differences in countries, but it's a case all over Europe, and we are pushing to rig new ground and implement smart grids. Of course, yes, smart grids are key tools to promote this famous previous strategy. Yes, digitalization first. Smart meters, smart meters, big data, more and more processing big data, but also exposed big data, IoT, digital devices, and more and more deeply part of the grid. Grid is no more copper and would say transformers. It's more and more IoT data. Secondly, decarbonization, smart grid, hello, Padi, was speaking about this massive integration of renewable energy sources in the system. And digitalization, I think this is key because it's not only the technical aspect, smart grids are already on the field, on the distribution network for real, for local, supporting citizen initiatives. It's not only a question of technology, because decentralization in allowing consumers to become not only often say prosumers, yes, but it's much more than prosumers. It's really the citizen or the customer being really the actor of the energy system in the future. So if you can move to the slide, number two, the next one, please. It's possible. Thank you very much. Just some words, but it has been said by Professor Liddice. Yes, it's all is the European Association, mostly representing the large DSOs all over Europe. It's always a key player in this time, as not only with power, but with transformation, our members, serve more than 350 million citizens in Europe. What is important to say also that we invest real money, yes, we invest 70 billion euro annually in the net worth. And this billion of Europe includes in recent years more than 800 million euro for R&D innovation projects. We developed together all the members of it. So we have a lot of projects, age 2020 project to innovate. But you may wonder why as leading DSOs, DSD network is a wonderful company in your country. Why we are so close and working together? My answer in a nutshell, two aspects. First, we share all our expertise and our diverse experiences to accelerate, question is accelerating the energy transition. And secondly, we build, we try to build a strong and competitive smart grid industry to make Europe and we think, we think together as a team that it's possible to be the worldwide leader in this industry. Yes, of course, it's about industry, it's about jobs, but it's also a question of European sovereignty. If you have the next slide, please, thank you very much. So smart grids are more and more, not only a game changer, that's the word revolution has to be pronounced further on. Even during this unprecedented crisis, I'm speaking about the COVID-19 crisis, the smart grids demonstrated really their resilience. We as DSOs and the whole electricity system kept the lights on. This was not an evidence. Don't even imagine that Europe will connect the expected renewable energy, welcome the electric vehicles and reach our CO2 emission reduction targets without smart grid. It would not be possible. We are facing an historical challenge. The energy transition needs the energy system transformation as a rule and smart grids are the backbone of this transformation. The revolution means millions of connected devices and billions of data we have to deal with, but not only to deal with this data, we have to transform this data to opportunities. If you can move to the next slide, please, thank you very much. So smart grids have been a key tool. I mentioned it to manage the COVID-19 crisis that unfortunately is probably not finished. DSOs have been key actors during this crisis. I say it with some kind of humidity maybe, but we can testify that DSOs have demonstrated the resilience of the metro this past month. Lights stayed on in Europe. Countries have been hit differently by the pandemic and stakeholders or states organized themselves maybe differently, but one thing remains ensuring essential activities to our customer and protect our employees was key. This has been made possible thanks to smart grids. We keep connecting customers to the network and ensure continuity and quality of supply. Digital solutions maintain this link. Link allowing DSOs to remotely operate the network 10 years ago, it would have been much more difficult, much more difficult. The link ensuring smooth contact between the DSOs, the suppliers, the electricity suppliers and the customer. Digital was key in this period and clearly we used this crisis as companies, as manager. We used also this crisis to accelerate the digitalization of the system. We did it thanks, I would say, the wonderful, confident and regular exchanges between us through our association DSO. We shared all our experiences these times. Also our doubts sometimes and our convictions, but you remember probably well as our very first COVID call it was beginning of March. No doubt that ESB networks has learned a lot hearing the feedback of e-distribution in Italy, our colleagues or from Iberdrola in Spain where the COVID-19 was already dramatically active. If you can move to the next slide. Yes, thanks very much. Smart grids are key tools for twin grid and digital transitions and challenges for the European recovery. We think that DSOs are key actors for this green recovery as inner blurs. We say inner blurs for an acceleration of the energy transition. Thanks to digital solutions and smart grids, thanks to the lesson learned during this crisis, we can bridge much stronger consumer and energy transition, connect higher shares of electricity from renewable sources, cooperate more actively with consumers and energy communities, enable a real breakthrough in the speed, question of speed of developing EV infrastructure across territories. As an association and personally also a manager in the company, but as an association which means all leading managers and DSOs in New York will have proposed to contribute actively to the European recovery plan in accordance of course with the Paris Agreement and the European objective to reach the carbon neutrality by 2050, but achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is not a theoretical objective. As an industry we want and we must do it, but I will mention affordable and clean energy for us. It do means not only integrating renewable energy sources into the grid, but also create and this is new, create value, real economic value for local flexibilities to enhance the grid efficiency for optimizing energy uses. Second, innovation and infrastructure, IOTs, artificial intelligence, big data, algorithm, we cannot miss this. As an industry we cannot miss this and together with our industry partners, not alone with ICT partners, companies, with startups, we pave the way for this future of the digital energy system. And third, sustainable victory. Our actions are summarized in the, we have recently published a, it's so sustainable grid charter published, I think it was just before Christmas in November. Have a look on it, on this sustainable grid charter. Those smart grids are not, at least not only a technical issue. We think as members of IOTs, we have a strong conviction that the customer are at the end of the center of the system. Self-consumption, energy communities, active cooperation with cities and being aware of the cultural issues are, in our view, as important as the technical aspects of the smart grid. I have already mentioned IOTs, delivered to commissioner Cadre Cison was, now a month ago, a report on how DSO could contribute to the EU recovery plan. The report provides a European commission with, within clear, concrete recommendation. It is crystal clear. Grid infrastructure investments, I mean, real money to improve the grid here in your country, in Ireland, as well as in all member states have a very positive impact, both on climate change, mitigation and on social issues and social issues will become very important. We have proposed four things together with a bank company to help us to challenge and deepen this proposal. The four proposals, first around storage and flexibilities, we think that you should reinforce DSO rule in the development of competitive storage, solution and flexibilities. Secondly, around electric mobility to get out of the, how can I tell, of the chicken and egg discussion about EV discussions. We propose to accelerate the EV infrastructure development. The markets cannot do it alone, not fast enough at least. Third, equipment components, service capabilities, sourcing all the question of supply chain. New rules should be investigated to secure the supply chain for technology, for IT especially, which are key to the network of digitalization on one side and on the other side is the question of sovereignty of our countries and globalist thinking of Europe. And the last topic in this proposal, recovery proposal is around IT, data, cyber security. Cyber security is becoming not only a threat, it's becoming a core business for the grid activities. DSOs are local, we are a neutral company, you know, in the market, you have generators, suppliers, competition and you have the infrastructure, the platform. This platform is neutral and close to the city, it's close to the citizen. You should strengthen our role, we think, in this neutral data explorer, by protecting privacy, of course, yes, a lot of discussion in some countries about privacy. We have to definitely to protect the privacy, but for the sake of renovation of buildings in some countries, for question of energy efficiency, for question of fighting against energy poverty, data is key and we do need neutral players for this. If you can move to the next slide, wonderful, thank you very much. So smart grids are key tools to drive the energy system transformation and integration. Earlier this month it has been said that Europe Commission for this is the energy system integration strategy. We think it includes, clearly, it's very positive, the energy system transformation to decarbonize and to induce sectors. Electricity smart grids are the core of the change and as they provide the means to manage energy sector coupling, the energy system integration is one, on one hand, I would say a big challenge for network and management. Generation sources are now coming from everywhere and from different energy carriers and on the other hand, a huge opportunity. Energy sector coupling provides more flexibility and increase overall energy savings. Micro generation, in some countries, we have colleagues, yes, more from I would say from the northern part of Europe, micro generation heating and cooling, for residential buildings, complementary with integration of renewables, storage for low carbon hydrogen. You see the money we discuss in all countries and a European level on hydrogen. Yes, the connection between hydrogen and storage is key and can become an important source of flexibility. In that way, smart grids are essential tools to decarbonize our economy and to a wide electrification of our building, transport, transport is key and industry. So as EDSO also strongly support the revision of the 10-year regulation to reinforce smart grid projects and to ensure the inclusion of synergies between sectors, synergies between sectors, notably energy and mobility. We think that verticals are not an answer, as we need to have a new result approach. And so the last slide to time for a question, yes, this is you see on this slide, I think the first page of our recommendation to the Commission. So what's next? Time, what's next? In this context, one thing is sure. A number of surprises lie in wait. I was mentioning artificial intelligence. When you look at the development of this issue in the world, we cannot do it alone, but we have to be leaders. This means transformation about cooperation strategy with companies. When you look at the question of 5G, I don't know what's the discussion in new country about 5G. In France, there are some discussions, yes, with some places where there are a lot of is it dangerous or not, what's about the opportunity, etc. 5G, this technology will be a huge game changer. The involvement of customer, we think as manager of our companies, that definitely the power of the customer will be absolutely crucial in the coming decade. Awareness and ecological issues of the customer, of the citizen, of the village, all the cities where the citizens are. So all these challenges are chances, are big opportunities. Our DSO spirit is to handle this kind of uncertainty, yes, a lot of it, so we can fear it, but this is not our spirit. We say these uncertainties are opportunities and to transform it, to create value for territories and consumer. In implementing the recommendation from the DSO in partnership, as I told you with Elbein, a recovery plan, we want clearly to give a signal. We want to fully play our role as neutral citizen centric and local enablers and contribute to the, I don't know how the word sovereignty is seen in Ireland, but we think that Europe has a role to play in the world and we have to, I was speaking about supply chain or IT or cybersecurity, we have to develop this together. I started this keynote with a 3D strategy, let's me close it with a 4D concept. The first D, of course, is still digitalization through network management, yes, decarbonization, second D in smoothing the digital transformation of the system. The third, of course, very important decentralization involving customer, local stakeholders, et cetera, and the fourth, one for DSO, like DSO, to connect the previous pillars to the society, connect all this to the society, to the countries, to the region, to the cities, to the villages. The ecosystem is a global one, from technology to social behaviors through financial or economical issues, from companies, we are as an association, we are an association of companies, but we have to discuss and we do it with NGOs, they have other contribution, a complementary view where to discuss with states, cities and people for political and worldwide decisions. Our commitment as DSOs is to act, to invest and to connect, to act, to invest and to connect. So to finish, I would like to again, yes, in this end of July, it's impressive to organize this kind of event. Congratulations. Thanks to all these, all people who organized these events. Thank you very much to ESP Network. It's a great initiative you have, you have done these days. And Padillaise and Fergal are very active in our association. Padillaise, thanks for having invited me as chairman. I'm here on behalf of all of you, yes. It's for one person, but it's a political, I would say, presence here. This webinar is agreed and so I'm eager to hear comments or maybe I hope questions, any questions are welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed, Christian. That's great. And indeed, questions are streaming in, but if I might abuse my position just for a moment to start off things, because my experience is mainly on the other side of the meter in the building side. And I'm aware of very interesting work being done within the international agencies, research activities, which involves Irish participants. I'm aware of people at UCD Dublin involved in this, but it's focusing on energy flexible buildings, grid responsive buildings. So there's an area here, I think, where we could talk about smart grids and smart buildings, the opportunities in the buildings also to contribute to shifting peak demand, of course, efficiency, reducing the demand and so on. So does that come within your ambit as well, Christian? Thanks for this question. I mentioned the ways smart grids can now give a value on the flexibility on the local area, because look back, 20 years back we created in Europe, which is now wonderful, the so-called wholesale markets, yes, and we give value to energy grid blocks between countries, including with Ireland. So, but now the question, it's not finished with wholesale markets, but yes, buildings, exactly what you mentioned, the flexibility of buildings, especially big buildings, yes, with a consumption, the way they handle this flexibility will create value, and we invest in R&D and probably in some, we have some projects about this, how this flexibility can create value locally, but also globally in the system, because you can avoid maybe to invest in the generation device, and so you see this, yes, of course, yes, the building is becoming part of the energy system. Fascinating, thank you. I have a question here, which in fact has two heads to it, in fact it's partly directed at you, Paddy, but it's from his, the Finnish ambassador to Ireland, Raleigh Lohenberg, and he's asking, Christian firstly, could you speak about how to channel more funds in the future in the European context, and then to Paddy Hayes, he's wondering how strongly will the development of smart grids feature the Irish recovery plan, but Christian, the opportunity to channel more funds in the European context? With more funds? More funds to support the development of smart grids in Europe, is the way I interpret the ambassador's question. I'm not sure that I understand the question with more funds. More money, more European funds, so I suppose it's relevant to the European Green Deal. Yes, the question is not only more money, yes. I told it further on, 70 billion euro invested in grid is a good investment, so yes. If the question is should Europe, so this is why we asked the question, is the question is should Europe propose some funds to accelerate, as an example, the EV infrastructure in Europe? Yes, yes, we should do this with special funds. You know, the clean energy package said the electric vehicle system is a question of market, and the DSO cannot invest in infrastructure, they only invest the markets in the signal. We think, and this is one of the proposals, we think that to, I said that the question of chicken and eggs, yes, and funds dedicated, maybe not in all countries, yes, it depends on the automotive industry, it depends on, I would say, the size of the country, of the environment of the country. But to develop this infrastructure with dedicated funds, yes, we think it would be good. The second example I would give to this question is funds for, I would say, renovation, yes. In some countries, the question of energy efficiency, not only in commercial buildings, but in private buildings, is not only a question of CO2, so it's a question of electricity poverty. A lot of people cannot pay their bill, and to have dedicated funds, if this is the question of our cooling, for renovation buildings, within this it's more, we push it, yes, to be clear. Thank you. Patty, can you say anything about the extent to which smart grids might feature in the Irish recovery plan? Yeah, thanks, and thanks, Riley, for the question. I think it's important to remember at our medium and high voltage levels, our grids are already very, very smart. So the challenge for us over the next five years, and in fact beyond the next five and ten years, as part of this price review PR5, on the subsequent PR6, the challenge for us is to make the grids at the low voltage level, at this distribution, as smart as they need to be. And that's going to be really important to enable electrification of transport, where, for example, Ireland's climate action plan talks about so many hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles on the roads by the end of this decade. And into that space, we're going to have to do a lot of investment to make sure that that level to distribution system, which wasn't designed for that, is capable of enabling and facilitating that. And as we're looking at this, and people will see those proposals and the regulators, in the regulators consultation papers that came out last week, we'll see those proposals, there are material amounts of money in that. But what's really important for us as we look at this is that we'll try, first of all, to use the capacity that's already in the network. And then we'll try and use smart methods by which we can maybe share or maybe phase shift the demand, or maybe we can link into storage that people have in their own homes or in other areas. And only then we'll be making, and that will avoid us sometimes having to make really significant nuts and bolts investment in the network, which of course will be required in some areas to reinforce it. So we've got a strategy for this. We're going to work through it very carefully. And it's all there for consultation at the moment with the CRU. Thanks very much, Patty. Thank you. There's a question from the ESB, in fact, from Dalgan O'Donnell, who asks, will the smart grid result in higher electricity prices? And what will the smart grid do for ordinary residential electricity customers, Christian? Is it going to cause price to go up? Yes, the question of price. If you look at before the prices in France, I don't know if in New Country it has been on the newspaper, but there was a decision to increase a little bit the price of fuel. Just it was, yes, more than a year ago and developed very, very suddenly and sometimes by a very brutal way, so-called gilet jaune, we said in France, yes, the yellow jackets. Because the question of price, this is why I said smart grid is not only a question of technology, it's a question of social issues and aspects. And the price is key. This is why we think as an, when I said we can be and we should be smart grid leaders, not alone as DSOs, but with the European industry, is also to maintain the price so low as it possible. Yes, we cannot invest in grid, invest in grid and increase the price. We have to connect all the values, I was speaking about connecting heating, gas, all the question of sector coupling, is really to avoid to have all the investment in addition and to have higher prices. People will not accept to pay more and more. The question of price is not only a question of grid, yes, because in all country you have the generation, you have costs, you have the grid cost and you have a lot, not knowing Ireland, but a lot of countries, a lot of taxes, local taxes or national taxes, but we have to maintain an acceptable price for the end users. This is key and this is, we are totally, the body, I can tell this on, on behalf of yourself, we are totally aware of this. When we invest in innovation, we have in mind the costs in the future. Thank you. The question, it's actually another question from another area of the ESP, Clive Bowers is energy policy manager, but it's related to some extent. Will the move to smart appliance rollout be driven by the market, or will a central mandate through technology standards be required to drive out the smart appliances? Yeah, this is what, when you, maybe you can give an additional, probably you were doing on smart meter, for example, we developed in a lot of countries, currently very actively in France, as we have one standard of smart meters, it's called Linky in France, whatever the name is, we have a, it's a standard for all of the countries, more or less the same standard entities in Spain or in Italy or in Portugal. It's important to have, come back on the question of sovereignty, to have standards and to develop it by acceptable prices. Yes, the question of standard is important. It's the case for smart meters. So when we look, I would say the return of investment of smart meters is positive. But it's the same, the question of standard for access to data. I was speaking about data and enormous value of the data and for the end users and local areas and cities. To have one standard, we proposed to the commission, it was now three years ago, maybe we have developed through a demonstrator in several countries, I would say some kind of green button, yes, to accept, to allow the customer to access to the same standard all over Europe, to the DSO data. This is key because if in some countries it's difficult, yes, you mentioned that I had the pleasure to be manager in Germany. In Germany, you had a lot of DSOs, they tried to work together to develop common standard because if each company in Germany or in Austria or by other friends and colleagues developed their own smart meters, for sure the cost will be higher. And the question of maintaining and being on the head on the lead of technology, you cannot do it alone. Yes, when you look what happened in the world about artificial intelligence, I don't want to assess too much this topic, but it's quite impressive. So we have to handle it together, but I don't know if you want to add something about standard. Well, I maybe just to take a little slightly different dimension of the question, Christian, I really love the question because what it does is it pulls us back to the customers. You mentioned the customer a number of times there, this sort of question and the smart revolution around distribution systems, it brings the customer front and center into the distribution environment. And it's not just a revolution about technology. It's actually, it's a cultural revolution because what smart devices are going to allow and what smart meetings are going to allow is the customer to interact with their own electricity and their energy system and play a critical part in decarbonizing society. And I think a large number of people in Ireland will use that as an opportunity to not just at an individual level, but also potentially at a community level, take an opportunity to play their part in decarbonization through clean electricity and smart devices like the ones that Clive has mentioned there interacting with our smart systems are going to allow for that to happen. And this is going to be quite a challenge, not just a technical challenge, Christian, I think for distribution system operators. There is a cultural challenge as well to open up the distribution systems and to embrace the other challenges coming in a different direction from the changing needs of the customers as they start to get involved in their own energy. Thank you, Paddy. Thank you. I have a question, Christian, from one of our ministries. Joseph Cummins at the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation makes the point that in Ireland here we have very significant targets indeed for increased electrification, most particularly in transport and in domestic heating. But we're also seeing a strong increase in demand from data centers. And his question is high demand growth a constraint or is it complementary to increasing integration of renewables on the grid? Yes, it's an important question because not only the case in Ireland, I think that the question of transport and domestic end user electricity is key for CO2. It depends how you produce. This is why the link to renewables is absolutely crucial. But in the same time, it's right. If we want, I was speaking about sovereignty, about data and IT and cybersecurity. This means data center, more data center in Europe. It's a very good question. This means increasing electricity. Yes, because data center, when you look what you need, what happened in India or in China around data, say, they use a lot of electricity, but they are also exactly, you mentioned it, when you were speaking about the buildings in the system, data center can also be, I would say, a huge way to value the flexibility. Yes, because data center, the use of data center, if you connect it with what's around this data center, you can trade systems. So it's a challenge, this increase of the data center. But it's not an option. We do need this data center. And so we have to connect all the environments to the system. Yes. But electrification, really, just sorry, but electrification and CO2 is deeply linked, yes, when you look for decades, there is no option about. Sure. A question which is perhaps of particular significance for ourselves on this island, but from the ESB's managing director for Northern Ireland, Paul Stapleton, he asks, what impact do you think that Brexit will have on the vision of achieving an integrated smart grid across Europe? And will EDSO continue to work with Britain to achieve this European smart grid? A difficult question. Thanks Paul for this question. We think, yes, if the answer should be very short, it's yes. We think that, for example, the question of data, integrate smart grids, it's not only, it's less and less, the question of copper and I mentioned it, copper or power transformer, et cetera. So to have an integration of smart grids means standards of IOTs, means standard of, I would say, data, the data environment, means standards about communication, I was speaking by 5G example. And this is for us, we see the northern part of Ireland, and all we try to get, we are very happy, very happy, as an association, I said with, varies continuously, that ESB is so active in our association, and the party is also handling the cooperation between us and the TSOs, it's another very important aspect that the cooperation between the transmission operator and the distribution operator. And ESB, through your geographical environments, can help the association to maintain this link with, I would say, with this nice part of Europe. Thank you. A question from a member of the institute, Mr. Yang Sheng Wang. He asks, some customers will pay attention to where their electricity supply comes from. Will smart grids allow the consumer to locate and identify the source of their electricity so that the customer can select a greener source of electricity? So will smart grid tell you what flavor of electron you're getting? The answer is clearly yes. I know nobody may, you can precise in your country what you are doing. In France, it has been mentioned that in my company, I'm also in charge of the concessions because we are organized around concessions. The local authorities, in fact, are the owner of the grid in France. So we have a concession system and they want to know now where the electricity is coming from. And we can do this through the data because all customers are connected to the DSOs, whoever the supplier is. And there is large and active competition in France where we have now six, yes, nearly 70 suppliers, but in front of local including on data, the guarantee of origin, I would say, from electricity. And this is one of the services that as a neutral enabler with DSO, we develop. It's not yet, at least in France, you can precise by in France, it's not yet totally industrialized, but yes, we can do this and we will do this. Thank you. Do you want to add anything, Patty? Or is that okay? Yeah, so just maybe to add to that, I think in Ireland, we look at that as more of the aggregated sources supply. But what I think is really nice about smart measures in the future, and I suspect is that at any given time of the day, it's going to be possible for customers to understand about the carbon intensity of the general electricity that's being generated in the system. So we're saying at the start, I think over the last six months, again, saw some numbers from IEA there that are SEAI numbers. Ireland's electricity generated from wind is up around 38 or 39% for the first six months of the year. And it was over 40% for the first five months of the year. And I think we'll get to a stage with smart meters and with the sort of smart services that I think supply companies are likely to bring forward, that any customer is going to be able to understand the carbon intensity of the electricity that they're consuming at that given point in time. And that'll allow people to make choices about deferring electricity usage to times when the carbon intensity is lower and so on. Or equally, if they've got some flexibility around storage or around charging electric vehicle, they'll be able to play tunes on that overall playing their part in minimizing the carbon intensity of society. And I think that's a really, really nice and important feature of smart grids. Thanks, Fanny. Christian, a colleague in the Indian Institute, Sophie Andrews-McCarroll, mentions or raises a question about a topic that you did make reference to. You talked about the resilience to cyber security threats. And even here in Ireland, we've seen some instances of cyber attacks on the Irish grade. How prevalent is this challenge across Europe? And has it been more difficult during the COVID-19 emergency where attention has been focused elsewhere, please? Thanks. I come on cyber security just to add, we are very spontaneous as to the previous question, just to add the importance of the self-consumption and the communities. If communities developing all over Europe, they want to have green electricity, they share the electricity between them, around them, not as an island in a system, but they share this to come on cyber. Yes, the topic was key during, we cannot be more precise on this, yes, but there were, yes, there were several risks identified during this crisis in some of our members. And I would say the attacks are more and more strong and very precise. So we pay, yes, we pay more and more attention. This is the fourth topic we made to the commission on this question of cyber. And we have these days, the discussion we have our board in next order as it's all in October. It's one of the discussion, what's about the future of EDSO for smart grid in this question of cyber? Should we invest? It's one of the questions, there's no answer. Yes, it's not yes, it's not no, but there is a question on the table. Should we invest together as companies? We are neutral, yes, we are not competitors, yes, he is based on competitor of entities in France, should we invest together to protect the system? The TSOs, the transmission system operators have done it, they are on the way to do this. This is one of the questions we have to handle in the future. I said that a lot of questions in front of us and for the coming, and for sure cyber is not, in addition, we have to handle cyber. Cyber security is a herd of DSOs, so important as copper is. A question from Mike Kelleher of Inowatts, it's an AI data analytics company, and he asks, how important will time of use tariffs, which obviously incentivize customers to use more energy at off peak times, how important will they be in facilitating ever-increasing renewables penetration in the smart grid? So it's time of use tariffs. How important, very important, this is exactly the question of, I would say, the value created by the smart meters, yes, because you can, the supplier can propose to his customer an adapted time or offer to have, I would say, tailor-made proposal to the customer. It's not the same for people who are living at home all the day. We have seen during Trisid that on residential side, there were no decreases. It was another curve in the day, during the day, but there was no global decrease on residential side, yes, during the COVID crisis. It's not the same, of course, in the industry. And so the smart meters, one of the enormous power of the smart meters is to allow to the suppliers, and not only the, I would say, the historical suppliers, maybe the question is coming more from a startup or I don't know the size of the company, the colleague asked the question, but we, I think, as a neighbor, we can promote and make possible more and more times of user tariffs. We have, we will launch in September, together with the government sponsored by the government in Paris, some kind of a free days, we bring anonymous data, bring it to startups for companies and they will, I would say, transform it. How can they build offers and tariffs, which are exactly adapted to what the customer needs. And this is a grid, yes, a grid transformation, which will be not in 10 years, I'm sure that will go very fast. Yes, once the smart meters is available, it goes very fast because we have data, we have data. Yeah, it's partly a related question and we're coming near the end of our question periods. There are a couple of questions I haven't been able to get to yet, but those one which I think is related, and that is from Darren Moriarty in the institute, what are the essential tools for creating local energy communities for a newly decentralized electricity grid? The essential tools for, so how do we go about creating local energy communities using the smart grid principles? I would say, very soon in Lesia, I would say the most important is trust, because if you create a community, you need trust between all the members of this community. More concretely, trust means for we are developing in a lot of countries, yes, our members are developing and we share our experiences, as I said, to accelerate. They accept to share their own data with the member of these communities, yes, because if you want to optimize these local communities, you have to use the flexibility when your neighbor is not at home, and you are at home, you use the electricity from the roof of his house, and this means trust. We as DSO, we organize this scene from the technology side, we offer them to sign some kind of contract, so they share their data, but the question is trust. The question is, is less technology than trust? Very good, very good, no, I think we might have to treat that as our final question, keeping an eye on the time here as well, so I think really at this stage, it folds to me to thank you most sincerely, Christian Bouchel, for your revelation of some of the things which are going on in this really important area central to our energy transition. It's been very good of you from the eastern part of France to join with us in discussing these issues and exchanging ideas and experience, so we're very grateful indeed. For our part in the IIEA, I also want to thank the ESB, it's been great to have Paddy Hayes, the managing director of ESB networks on board, and we're very grateful to the ESB for their support in enabling this series on the Rethinking Energy, the ESB IIEA series. Thank you all very much, and I wish you a good day and good weekend. Thank you.