"The ELECON project focuses on the establishment of a competent and fruitful network between EU and Brazilian researchers to contribute to the smart grid successful implementation. ELECON is an innovative scientific and exchange scheme aiming at advancing on electricity consumption analysis methods and on the way they are used to promote energy efficiency.ELECON will focus on the design and use of demand response (DR) and on the identification of non-technical losses, for their crucial role in the sustainability of energy systems and relevance ensuring the correctness of the energy billing, respectively. It will also address communications infrastructure and innovative decentralised control models, required to bring these concepts into reality. The main objectives of ELECON are:- Consolidation of an international network of scientific entities between EU and Brazil- Utilization of state-of-the-art methodologies and innovative techniques for promoting energy efficiency through electricity consumption analysis and the use of DR and non-technical losses identification- Production and dissemination of core scientific knowledge and know-how between EU and Brazil, benefiting from complementary and multidisciplinary knowledge and experience- Undertake benchmarking studies with EU and Brazilian real electricity consumption and power system data- Establishment of strong basis for future long lasting collaborations.The EU is in a good position to show its consolidated background in the energy field, to transfer knowledge to 3rd party countries and rapidly advance towards effective real world changes in this area. Brazil is a very important player with interesting unique experiences in the energy field, so learning from them it is a great opportunity. The complementary expertise and high scientific level, supported by the exchange program of both ER and ESR, will bring high quality results with significant impact and lay the basis for long lasting collaboration."