StraZNP – Strategic and Targeted Grid Planning

Due to the changing technical requirements for power distribution grids as a result of the energy transformation, long-term targeted grid planning is becoming increasingly important in addition to short-term upgrades in the grid infrastructure. In addition to economic optimization over a long time period, it is also important to be able to anticipate changing consumer loads and include them in grid planning in conjunction with decentralized generation and more decentralized storage. The overall aim of the project is to create a planning tool primarily for grid operators and planners to automate the targeted grid planning process.

In this project, Fraunhofer ISE is developing a planning tool that calculates proposals for cost-optimized grid expansion for both given and anticipated grid loads. Various algorithms are being developed and tested to solve the problem of cost-optimal grid expansion. In addition to grid expansion for given loads, solutions are also being developed, on the other hand, to avoid grid expansion by control interventions. These include measures such as demand side management and limiting electricity generation. For this purpose, the costs of load shifting and of curtailing power generation are determined. Special to the project is that numerous essential drivers for the supply (e.g. social factors, technological developments, regulatory framework conditions or market developments) are analyzed in addition to the technical requirements and flexibility measures. These additional aspects are quantified as parameters and used for the grid planning, e.g. the number of electric vehicles in each region.

A specific goal in the subproject is to derive reliable parameters (and determine transparent uncertainties) and to link the sources of the parameters with the input interfaces of the software modules. To do this, Fraunhofer ISE uses its own universal load profile generator “synPro,” which generates load profiles for a wide range of scenarios for private and commercial grid subscribers.

In the strategic targeted grid planning process, parameters specifying the local infrastructure are combined with grid development scenarios in order to allow sustainable cost-efficient planning even under varying technical and regulatory requirements. With an appropriate software package, this complicated planning process becomes automated.