CEI-Sphere is pleased to promote the Residential Flexibility Test Event and Conference , organised by ElaadNL with the support of TNO and FAN.
The two-day event will take place on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 February 2026 at the ElaadNL Testlab in Arnhem, the Netherlands. It will bring together technology providers, system developers, policymakers, and researchers working on residential energy flexibility and interoperability.
Residential Flexibility Test Event
ElaadNL invites manufacturers and developers to take part in the first Residential Flexibility Test Event, extending its proven “testival” approach from EVs and charging infrastructure to Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) and Flexible Energy Intensive Devices (FEIDs).
Participation offers a unique opportunity to test products and software alongside other vendors in a neutral, pre-competitive environment. Participants can identify interoperability challenges at an early stage, explore solutions collaboratively, and gain insight into how their assets behave in realistic residential flexibility scenarios. By taking part, organisations actively contribute to building a shared technical foundation for scalable residential flexibility across Europe.
The long-term ambition of this initiative is to support the establishment of a certification process for interoperable HEMS and FEIDs by the end of 2026.
Who can participate?
The test event is open to producers and manufacturers of in-scope equipment, including physical or cloud-based HEMS, as well as EV chargers, stationary batteries, solar inverters, and heat pumps. Participants are required to bring their own hardware to the event.
For this first test event, there are no restrictions on communication protocols. From the second event onwards, testing will be limited to EEBus, Matter, OCPP, S2, and OpenADR.
Please note that all test outcomes will remain confidential and will be covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and a test lab agreement.
Conference on Residential Flexibility (12 February 2026)
Alongside the test event, a Conference on Residential Flexibility will take place on Thursday 12 February 2026. Attendance at the conference is possible independently of participation in the test event.
The conference programme will focus on the broader context of residential flexibility, addressing its role in the energy transition, challenges related to grid congestion, current and emerging interoperability standards, and ongoing open-source and standardisation initiatives.