Since 2024, the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano has been participating in the international MEDFASEE project, an initiative started in 2003 in Brazil at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) and aimed at the advanced monitoring of electricity grids through the installation of Phase Measurement Units (PMUs). To date, the project has led to the commissioning of more than 20 PMUs in Brazil, a dozen in Argentina and Chile and, more recently, four in Europe (Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Italy).

One of these PMUs has been installed on the Leonardo Campus of Politecnico di Milano to monitor the internal microgrid, both in its operation connected to the public grid and in isolated mode. Starting in January 2025, the PMU will officially go into operation, recording every 20 milliseconds the main electrical quantities synchronised via satellite with those measured by the other PMUs in the international network. This will make it possible to analyse the behaviour of the European electricity grid and study possible disturbances, such as electromechanical oscillations between different nodes of the network.

The installation of the PMU is part of the PoliGrid project, Politecnico di Milano’s smart grid, designed to ensure greater continuity of the electricity service on the campus in Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, Via Bassini, Via Bonardi and Via Golgi. Thanks to an internal medium voltage (23 kV) distribution network and a combination of photovoltaic and cogeneration plants, PoliGrid represents an advanced example of a multi-carrier energy district, capable of providing flexibility services to the public distribution network.

Equipped with a technologically advanced infrastructure, PoliGrid enables dynamic management of energy production and consumption, offering a real test bed for the development and testing of innovative algorithms for the management of complex electricity grids. The presence of a Central Plant Controller, CEI 0-16 compliant, also opens the way to new opportunities in the field of demand response and dispatching services, actively contributing to European and national decarbonisation objectives.