The multiannual 2021-2025 Work Programme for implementing the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility – Digital (CEF Digital) was adopted on 16 December 2021. CEF Digital will contribute, among other objectives, to the digitalisation of transport and energy by supporting the implementation of Operational Digital Platforms (ODPs).
The aim of this topic is to contribute to achieving the EU’s environmental, energy and digitalisation targets by enabling a cyber-secure Internet of Energy and an optimised transport system along major European pathways. The support will be dedicated to retrofitting existing energy and transport infrastructures with a cross-border digital infrastructure.
Operating via communication networks, ODPs are physical and virtual ICT resources that support the flow, storage, processing and analysis of transport and energy data. The ODPs are expected to build on and integrate with existing and emerging European data, cloud and edge computing and connectivity infrastructures, in particular those supported in other parts of CEF Digital, Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Programme.
Their implementation will be based on a two-phase approach: a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) published on 12 January 2022, for a budget of EUR 4 million, which makes the case and builds constituency, and a potential works project, envisaged to be called for in 2024, supporting the deployment of the relevant building blocks.
With a potential consortium balanced across the relevant stakeholder groups of the digital, energy and mobility sectors, the four stages of the CSA to be implemented are:
- An exploratory study to prepare the baseline and identify use cases in energy and mobility;
- A feasibility study for six shortlisted cases;
- Detailed preparations for three shortlisted cases;
- Assistance to the projects coming from the envisaged call for works.
The submission deadline for the CEF Digital Call for Proposals is 21 March 2023 at 17:00 CET.