Urban District and Neighborhood Management

With the growing expansion of renewables, the demand for intelligent energy management solutions is increasing in the low-voltage grid. Local energy generation from micro plants and flexible loads are synchronized at the local level, thus reducing complexity at the higher voltage levels. In the future, city quarters and neighborhoods will be actively managed to maximize local generation and relieve superordinate grid levels. In this context, we are developing new management solutions based on decentralized plants and a large number of market participants. Besides optimization at the building, we are also researching holistic concepts for neighborhood management. From the first concept to the realized city quarter flagship project, we drive innovative solutions forward, demonstrating the advantages of decentralized energy management in real-life operation

Our R&D activities on "Urban District and Neighborhood Management" include:

• Energy agents for distributed micro systems
• Technology consulting for solutions with BSI-compliant smart metering  systems, especially for system control via control boxes
• Simulation and evaluation of decentralized energy management
• Billing of energy amounts in the block chain
• Management systems for urban district and neighborhood management and landlord-to-tenant electricity supply projects

For a distributed energy landscape with a large number of controllable loads and generators, we develop individual energy agents which are tailored to the respective system requirements and convert user-defined targets into control commands. Agents act independently without a central control authority in order to optimize the plant operation and are in communication with other agents to optimize the larger network of plants.

The nationwide roll-out of the intelligent measuring system iMSys has been decided. The Smart Meter Gateway offers a secure communication channel to the meters and controllable loads of the end customer. Control boxes are used as energy management gateways, which ensure optimized operation through networking, and are also used for targeted energy efficiency analysis of systems in the power grid. In our Digital Grid Lab, we investigate the use cases for load control via the smart meter gateway.

To test the performance of a decentralized energy management system, we have developed a modular simulation environment with many technology models which can be individually configured. Based on the models from the synPRO family, a simulation landscape can be created bottom up to simulate the energy system of a complete district.

In order to carry out the billing of renewable energy quantities in neighborhoods securely and transparently without introducing a new central accountant, we are developing so-called “smart contracts” for use in block chain environments. This robust infrastructure that builds trust and provides the financial incentives for a high-resolution data-based energy management.

Our energy management systems are used for the realization of landlord-to-tenant electricity supply projects and urban quarter projects. We examine future load profiles and control concepts in detail. This helps to avoid the necessity of expanding power grids. In addition to optimizing the electricity system, we are also working on sector coupling for the sectors of mobility, heating and cooling. In current research projects, we demonstrate a vision of future communities with a locally generated energy supply based on renewables . Such projects make an important contribution on the way to a citizen-owned energy supply.