COMPANIA NATIONALA DE TRANSPORT AL ENERGIEI ELECTRICE TRANSELECTRICA SA

Their core work

Transelectrica is Romania's national electricity transmission system operator (TSO), responsible for operating and maintaining the high-voltage power grid across the country. In EU research, they contribute real-world grid infrastructure, operational data, and pilot sites for testing cross-border energy trading, renewable energy integration, and grid cybersecurity solutions. Their participation brings the perspective of an Eastern European TSO managing the challenges of integrating variable renewables into an interconnected European grid while ensuring system stability and security.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

From 2016 to 2019, Transelectrica focused heavily on cross-border energy market integration — balancing, redispatching, storage coordination, and TSO collaboration across Eastern Europe (FutureFlow, RE-SERVE, CROSSBOW). Starting in 2019, their portfolio shifted significantly toward cybersecurity of energy systems (EPES), with PHOENIX, ELECTRON, and CyberSEAS all addressing grid protection, privacy, and resilience. This reflects the broader European recognition that digitalized and interconnected grids create new attack surfaces that TSOs must defend.

Transelectrica is moving from pure grid operations research toward the security and resilience layer of energy systems — expect future involvement in cyber-physical protection, AI-based grid monitoring, and secure data sharing for energy services.

How they like to work

Transelectrica participates exclusively as a consortium partner, never as coordinator — consistent with their role as a national infrastructure operator contributing real-world grid assets and operational expertise rather than leading research. They work in large consortia (183 unique partners across 8 projects), indicating broad European network engagement. Their funding per project (avg EUR 193K) suggests a validation and pilot-site role rather than deep R&D execution.

Transelectrica has collaborated with 183 unique partners across 31 countries, giving them one of the broadest TSO networks in Eastern Europe for H2020 energy research. Their partnerships span Western and Eastern European utilities, research institutes, and technology providers.

What sets them apart

As Romania's sole electricity TSO, Transelectrica offers something few partners can: access to a real national transmission grid at the EU's eastern border, where cross-border integration challenges are most acute. Their dual expertise in grid operations and cybersecurity makes them valuable for projects needing both physical infrastructure validation and security testing. For consortium builders, they provide an Eastern European pilot site with direct operational authority over transmission infrastructure.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CROSSBOW
  Largest funded project (EUR 388K) — focused on cross-border management of renewables and storage across Eastern European TSOs, directly aligned with Transelectrica's core mission.
• PHOENIX
  Marks Transelectrica's pivot into cybersecurity — a large-scale pilot for protecting electrical power systems against complex cyber and privacy attacks.
• INTERRFACE
  Addressed the critical TSO-DSO interface architecture for pan-European grid services markets, with Transelectrica contributing the Romanian transmission operator perspective.