  Power system operation is of vital importance and must be developed far
beyond today's practice to meet future needs. Almost all European countries are
facing an abrupt and very important increase of renewables with intrinsically
varying yields which are difficult to predict. In addition, an increase of new
types of electric loads and a reduction of traditional production from bulk
generation can be observed as well. Hence, the level of complexity of system
operation steadily increases. Because of these developments, the traditional
power system is being transformed into a smart grid. Previous and ongoing
research has tended to focus on how specific aspects of smart grids can be
developed and validated, but until now there exists no integrated approach for
analysing and evaluating complex smart grid configurations. To tackle these
research and development needs, a pan-European research infrastructure is
realized in the ERIGrid project that supports the technology development as
well as the roll out of smart grid technologies and solutions. This paper
provides an overview of the main results of ERIGrid which have been achieved
during the last four years. Also, experiences and lessons learned are discussed
and an outlook to future research needs is provided.
