Successfully shaping the energy system of the future: The SICP is the consortium leader of the forward-looking joint project "FlexiEnergy" and, together with nine project partners from science and industry, is developing a decision support system to shape the future energy system.
Against the backdrop of rising demand for energy and the finite nature of fossil fuels such as oil and gas, the German government has set the target of increasing the share of electricity from wind and solar power in gross final energy consumption from around 15 per cent at present to 60 per cent in 2050. There is still a long way to go. This raises the question of how the future energy system should be organised in the face of increasingly volatile energy generation.
The "FlexiEnergy" research and development project is addressing these challenges. The project, which has a total volume of 2.4 million euros, is being funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF ) with up to 1.6 million euros over three years. New technologies for energy transformation, such as the conversion of electricity into heat, and for energy storage using storage technologies, such as batteries from electric vehicles, offer new potential for making energy grids more flexible. The planning requirements are becoming significantly more complex. "The aim of this project is to develop a decision support system that can be used for design tasks relating to energy transport, energy storage and energy conversion. For the first time, the electricity, gas, heat and mobility sectors are being considered in an integrated manner," explains Project Manager Dr Christoph Weskamp, R&D Manager Digital Business at SICP. "Future scenarios are being developed in order to identify the most cost-efficient and flexible energy system possible. To this end, economic and physical-technical simulations are carried out and mathematical optimisation is used," says Dr. Weskamp.
