As energy systems face growing operational, environmental and security challenges, ensuring the resilience of Europe’s electricity grids is becoming increasingly important. This is driving demand for innovative solutions that can help grid operators anticipate, detect and respond to disruptions, while maintaining a secure and reliable energy supply.
This Call for Proposals is conducted in collaboration with ENTSO-E, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity. As part of ESA’s Task Force for Innovation in Energy Through Space, ENTSO-E has consolidated a representative set of generic operational challenges for electricity transmission networks, focusing on system operation, resilience, situational awareness and operational efficiency.
The Call invites proposals for Proof-of-concept Studies and Pilot Projects for services addressing selected challenges relevant to the resilience and operational continuity of European electricity transmission systems. These include:
- growing physical, cyber, and climate-related risks to energy infrastructure
- increasingly extreme weather events (such as wildfires, floods, storms, heatwaves) affecting grid operations
- increasing dependency on secure infrastructure for digitalisation and interconnected power systems, and
- economic, societal, and national security impacts from disruption to energy systems
The challenges have been identified through engagement with ENTSO-E and European Transmission System Operators. They are illustrative, intentionally generalised and intended to stimulate innovation. They should not be interpreted as descriptions of the current operational practices, existing capability gaps or specific priorities of ENTSO-E or any individual TSO.
Subject to their individual interest and applicable internal, operational, security, regulatory and procurement requirements, participating TSOs may engage with selected bidders as potential users and contribute to the validation and demonstration of proposed solutions.
Topics of relevance and challenge areas
The use cases are organised under two complementary challenge areas, reflecting the operational needs identified by ENTSO-E in relation to the secure and resilient operation of Europe’s interconnected electricity transmission system.
The proposed activities build on existing space-enabled capabilities and services, including Earth observation, positioning, navigation and timing, and satellite communications. The objective is therefore not to develop these capabilities in isolation, but to demonstrate their operational value for TSOs and explore how they can complement existing terrestrial solutions, strengthen resilience and support continuity of grid operations.
The two themes will open for applications one after the other. For challenge areas 1, “Situational Awareness for Critical Events”, applications are invited from November 4 2026 to January 29 2027 – see challenge details below.
Challenge area 2 “Strengthening Operational Resilience for the Grid” will be added as a separate call on the IUKBC website when it opens: applications will be invited from February 1 2027 to 30 April 2027.
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Businesses from any sector can apply. ESA look for motivated teams with established business, financial and technical expertise who can address our focus areas with market-ready concepts.
To be eligible for funding, your team must be based in an ESA member state: this includes the UK.
Potential Tenderers are strongly advised to contact the National Delegation(s) of the countries where their industrial partners (Prime and Subcontractors) are located as soon as possible. A Written Authorisation for ESA funding from the National Delegation(s) is required for the Full Proposal. Contact details for the UK National Delegation are available here.
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Developing solutions that improve the ability of Transmission System Operators to anticipate, detect, understand and assess risks affecting electricity transmission infrastructure and system stability through enhanced awareness of environmental hazards, infrastructure condition and evolving operational risks.
Key capabilities:
- Early detection and monitoring of wildfires, floods, extreme weather, and infrastructure failures
- Monitoring of transmission corridors, vegetation encroachment, and environmental risks Integration of space weather information for grid risk forecasting
- Post-event damage assessment and operational recovery support
- Scalable and interoperable platforms supporting use across multiple transmission system environments, subject to applicable requirements
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Space assets provide critical capabilities to support grid resilience:
- Satellite Earth Observation (SatEO) data can provide valuable capabilities for monitoring infrastructure, environmental risks and to assess damage. SatEO provides wide-area, persistent monitoring of transmission corridors and substations, enabling near real-time detection and forecasting of wildfires, and supporting rapid flood mapping and post-event damage assessment. SatEO also allows operators to monitor vegetation encroachment and construction activities that may impact the grid and to detect ground deformation using radar techniques, identifying subsidence or structural movements that could affect critical infrastructure.
- Satellite Navigation (SatNav) can provide high-precision positioning capabilities that may support applications within digital sub-stations and other grid assets requiring a stringent synchronisation performance. SatNav can also enable the detection of structural displacement or slow asset movement, and provides independent, resilient timing sources that migrate risks associated with terrestrial timing failures or signal interference.
- Satellite Communications (SatCom) support secure and resilient connectivity during outages and emergencies. SatCom can provide secure backup connectivity during terrestrial network outages or cyber incidents, and enable rapid deployment of communications in disaster-affected areas. It also supports independent command-and-control channels for grid restoration operations, and may support resilient backup communications and interoperability with relevant utility communication environments, subject to the applicable technical, cybersecurity and operational requirements.
- Space Weather services can provide valuable capabilities for forecasting and monitoring solar and geomagnetic activity that may impact electricity transmission systems. Space Weather services support the prediction of geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) and provide early warning of severe geomagnetic disturbances that may affect grid infrastructure. These capabilities can help operators improve situational awareness, assess potential impacts on critical assets, and support preparedness and mitigation activities before and during space weather events.
- Supporting digital technologies including Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Digital Twins, and advanced data fusion and analytics.
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We look for motivated teams with established business, financial and technical expertise who can address our focus areas with market-ready concepts. Submitted proposals must demonstrate:
- Commercial Viability and Sustainable Business Models: Service concepts designed for long-term commercial profitability. Projects targeting public sector or law enforcement users (B2G) are strongly encouraged to incorporate commercial B2B customer streams to ensure post-project sustainability.
- Operational Readiness over Research: A clear focus on deploying pre-operational commercial services rather than pure academic research or basic scientific data exploration. Concepts must be driven by practical market demand and active user support.
- Technical Data Self-Sufficiency: Bidding teams must already possess the internal technical capability to acquire and process downstream space data. Teams must be self-sufficient from the outset, as ESA provides financial and strategic backing rather than direct software engineering support.
- Distinct Space Added Value: Clear, measurable operational or commercial advantages derived directly from the integration of space assets over traditional terrestrial alternatives.
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If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Space team.