Madrid-based university specializing in electricity grid flexibility, TSO-DSO coordination, and energy market design across major European demonstration projects.
Universidad Pontificia Comillas is a private research university in Madrid with deep expertise in electricity systems, grid flexibility, and energy market design. Their engineering faculty contributes technical modeling and demonstration work on TSO-DSO coordination, demand response, and renewable energy integration across European power grids. Beyond energy, they run applied social science research on migration integration, youth cybersecurity education, and family-centered healthcare — reflecting a university that bridges engineering with social impact.
Core contributor across CoordiNet, EUniversal, POSYTYF, OneNet, ATTEST, and REDREAM — all focused on grid services, flexibility markets, and distribution-transmission coordination.
Active in SET-Nav (energy roadmaps), Open ENTRANCE (open energy models), ECEMF (climate-energy modeling), IndustRE and InteGrid (RES integration demonstrations).
Coordinated REDREAM on prosumer engagement and energy services; contributed to CoordiNet and EUniversal on demand-side flexibility and market mechanisms.
Participant in RESPONSE (energy positive districts, coal region transition) and Bio-FlexGen (biomass-hydrogen flexible generation).
Coordinated IMMERSE on refugee children integration in schools; participates in Global-ANSWER on social work practices across the Euro-Mediterranean region.
Coordinated RAYUELA, a security project developing serious games to educate young people about cybercrime, grooming, and cyberbullying.
In their early H2020 period (2014–2018), Comillas focused on foundational energy market research — industrial electricity flexibility, grid integration of variable renewables, and energy innovation roadmaps (IndustRE, UPGRID, SET-Nav). From 2019 onward, their energy work matured toward large-scale demonstrations of TSO-DSO coordination, flexibility markets, and energy positive districts (CoordiNet, EUniversal, OneNet, RESPONSE), while they simultaneously expanded into social science domains: migration integration, global social work, and youth cybersecurity. This dual evolution signals a university deepening its technical grid expertise while deliberately broadening into socio-technical research where engineering meets societal challenges.
Comillas is moving toward applied flexibility market design and consumer-facing energy solutions, while building a secondary pillar in social science research on migration and inclusion.
Comillas operates primarily as an active consortium partner (16 of 20 projects), contributing technical expertise within large European teams, but has demonstrated coordination capability in three projects spanning energy, security, and social science. With 547 unique partners across 36 countries, they maintain a very broad network rather than relying on a small circle of repeat collaborators. This makes them an accessible, well-connected partner — easy to integrate into new consortia and experienced in working across diverse institutional cultures.
Comillas has collaborated with 547 distinct organizations across 36 countries, forming one of the broader partnership networks among Spanish universities in H2020 energy research. Their connections span Southern and Northern Europe extensively, with strong links to Portuguese, German, and Belgian energy research institutions.
Comillas stands out among Spanish universities for the sheer density of their participation in Europe's flagship electricity grid and flexibility projects — they appear in nearly every major TSO-DSO coordination demonstration (CoordiNet, OneNet, EUniversal, ATTEST). Their Institute for Research in Technology (IIT) is one of the most recognized power systems research groups in Southern Europe. The combination of deep grid engineering expertise with active social science research makes them an unusual partner capable of addressing both technical and human dimensions of the energy transition.
