CEI-Sphere was in Florence on 28 and 29 September for the third edition of AIOTI Days, with a dedicated session on one of the questions the project keeps coming back to as it enters its final year: what has to happen for a solution that works technically to become something customers will adopt, someone will pay for, and that can scale beyond the pilot.
The session, "Business cases from the ecosystem perspective: from technology validation to market readiness", ran as a hybrid on the morning of 29 September and was opened by Hannah Funk (VDI/VDE-IT).
Setting the frame
Javier del Cid (BluSpecs) opened with an overview of CEI-Sphere and how the three Spheres are organised around energy, mobility and industry, each gathering use cases from the Large-Scale Pilots and working through a rhythm of stand-ups and deep dives. He also introduced the S1 SIGNAL tool, the project's market intelligence platform.
Estíbaliz Arzoz Fernández (Trialog) followed with the Hourglass Model 2027, the updated version of the framework CEI-Sphere uses to map stakeholders and capabilities, and to locate the narrow layer where interoperability and open standards make collaboration possible.
Three views from the market
The second half brought in people actually trying to sell these solutions.
Gabriela Rogowska (Trust-IT) presented the CISERO project and its work supporting IPCEI-CIS exploitation, including the business case and marketplace angle. Fabian Weiersmüller (CLEMAP) joined online with the flexibility use cases from O-CEI Pilot 8, where EV chargers across Swiss sites are being used both for dynamic tariff optimisation and as part of a balancing energy pool. Christopher Tolstrup (Enyday) closed with a start-up perspective from Copenhagen on commercialising and scaling digital solutions for energy communities and flexibility.
The discussion that followed covered familiar ground for anyone working on this: who is actually willing to pay and for what, how value gets distributed between residents, property owners, utilities and municipalities, whether regulation or market demand is the stronger driver right now, and what the real barriers are between a successful demonstration and a service that sustains itself. One point came through clearly across all three contributions: a good pilot is not a business, and getting from one to the other is as much about references, trust and distribution channels as it is about technology.
A second contribution on 5G
CEI-Sphere also featured in the Energy and 6G Convergence session, where Hannah Funk presented 5G use cases from the Large-Scale Pilots, including Pilot 7 on trustworthy and secure EV charging over reliable 5G networks, and Cluster 4 on smart vineyards and sustainable winery ecosystems.