UK power electronics SME building energy storage, grid balancing, and smart building hardware for EU energy research consortia.
Turbo Power Systems is a UK-based SME specializing in power electronics and energy management systems. They design and build hardware for grid-connected energy storage, power conversion, and building energy systems. Across their H2020 portfolio, they contribute power electronics expertise to projects tackling smart grids, energy balancing, and building retrofit — always as the component/subsystem provider rather than the system integrator. Their work sits at the intersection of electrical engineering and energy infrastructure, turning research concepts into working power hardware.
Core contribution across all three projects — from building-level power management (HEART) to grid-scale power electronics for railways and distribution networks (E-LOBSTER) and smart grid balancing (ebalance-plus).
E-LOBSTER focused on integrated storage with power electronics for distribution networks; ebalance-plus addressed grid resilience through distributed energy resources and electric smart storage.
HEART project involved building automation, integrated design, and Energy Internet of Things for whole-building performance improvement.
E-LOBSTER explicitly involved lithium batteries alongside power electronics; ebalance-plus addressed electric smart storage for grid balancing.
TPS started their H2020 participation in 2017 focused on smart buildings — energy IoT, building automation, and integrated design for retrofit (HEART). By 2018-2020, they shifted decisively toward grid-scale challenges: power electronics for distribution networks, lithium battery integration, grid resilience, and flexibility markets. This progression from building-level to grid-level energy management shows a clear scaling-up of their ambitions and technical scope.
TPS is moving toward grid-scale energy balancing and flexibility markets, making them a strong fit for future projects on distributed energy resources, storage integration, and prosumer-enabled grids.
TPS operates exclusively as a participant — they have never coordinated an H2020 project. With 42 unique partners across 16 countries from just 3 projects, they join large, diverse consortia (averaging 14+ partners per project). This profile suggests a specialist contributor that brings specific hardware/engineering capability to large collaborative efforts rather than driving the research agenda.
Despite only three projects, TPS has built a broad network of 42 partners spanning 16 countries, indicating they consistently join large pan-European consortia. Their geographic footprint is wide for an SME of this size.
TPS fills a specific niche: they are a private SME that manufactures power electronics hardware, which makes them a rare bridge between academic energy research and deployable electrical components. Most power electronics companies of this scale don't engage in EU collaborative R&D, while most EU project participants don't build physical power conversion equipment. For consortium builders, TPS offers the ability to turn energy management concepts into real hardware demonstrations.
