Goodmill to Research Reliable Communication in Future Electricity Networks with Aalto, ABB, and VTT

Goodmill has joined the project IFORGE, which is a part of ABB’s major effort in researching green electrification. The name IFORGE is shorthand for “ICT For Resilient Green Electrification” and it studies in a laboratory environment how can all the components end-to-end be brought together to realize real use cases of distributed electricity networks. In the connectivity domain much of the research is with 5G networks including existing commercial networks – and naturally with multichannel routing. Aalto University and VTT are key partners in the research project providing the scientific background for the work.

“In addition to technical aspects, the IFORGE-project studies potential business models enabled by the use of novel future wireless technologies and services as the communication platform for power systems applications. Multi-operator environments, enabled in part by multichannel routing solutions, form an interesting part of the research”, says Seppo Borenius, researcher at Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering.

The larger ABB Green Electrification 2035 program has many other projects not related to connectivity and is one of the so called Veturi (Locomotive) programs funded by Business Finland. These programs aim to support global companies to lead the development of ecosystems with substantial impact not only for Finland but for the whole world. With ABB’s program the overarching goal is a carbon neutral society. Goodmill does not receive public funding for its research efforts for this project.

“We have successfully proven that the technology and products developed for the public safety authorities can be effectively employed with unmanned systems such as autonomous cars and as we have understood more about the current and especially future needs of the electricity system, we think that we might have a lot to give to this industry as well. It is a very important topic as the green transition is an existential topic for the planet. Our first aim in this project is to prove that multichannel routing can solve relevant electricity network challenges.”, comments Topias Uotila, CEO of Goodmill Systems.