To contribute to global climate protection, Germany has to rapidly and comprehensively minimize the use of fossil energy sources and to transform the energy system accordingly. The Helmholtz Association’s research initiative “Energy System 2050” has studied how and by which means this can be achieved. One of the partners is Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). At the final conference in Berlin, scientists of the participating research centers presented their results.

Computer scientist Dorothea Wagner, who conducts research and teaches at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), will chair the Council of Science and Humanities, Germany’s most important advisory body in research policy. After her predecessor, agricultural economist Martina Brockmeier, and engineering scientist Dagmar Schipanski, Dorothea Wagner, professor and Head of KIT’s Institute of Theoretical Informatics, is the third woman in this post.

In the "Karlsruhe-Land 2013 - 2019" award procedure, the Baden-Württemberg Chamber of Architects (AKBW) has awarded the 'Exemplary Building Karlsruhe' prize to the Energy Lab 2.0 building (Building 668 on Campus North). The architectural office is Behnisch Architekten from Stuttgart, the tender and site management was carried out by Wiesler Zwirlein Architekten GbR from Ostfildern-Kemnat.

The jury's reasoning is: 'The new building presents itself as a free-standing solitaire with a homogeneous, translucent polycarbonate shell that allows the building to shine mysteriously at dusk and supplies the interior with natural light evenly during the day. The soft daylight and the wood of the supporting structure create a surprisingly pleasant working atmosphere in the test hall and the offices. Simple glass walls separate the different room areas, resulting in a variety of visual relationships. The Energy Lab 2.0 is an innovative, attractive and high-quality place for research.'

Professor Thomas Leibfried was elected to the board of the Smart Grids Platform Baden-Württemberg with effect from 1.1.2020. The purpose of the association is to promote intelligent energy networks (Smart Grids infrastructure) and related innovative Smart Grids products and services in research, development and implementation with the long-term goal of largely CO2-free energy supply generation. The platform represents over 60 partners from companies, research institutions and associations as well as individuals. The association was founded in 2013 in Stuttgart, published the Smart Grids Roadmap Baden-Württemberg and has the overall goal to implement this roadmap comprehensively and area-wide in Baden-Württemberg.

Dorothea Wagner’s research on automated route planning is applied daily all over the world. So far, the computer scientist of KIT has published more than 250 articles about algorithmics issues. The professor combines theoretical and practical approaches to optimize energy systems, among others. The Konrad Zuse Medal presented to Dorothea Wagner at the Annual Meeting of the German Informatics Society (GI) honors her as “an outstanding scientist, whose contributions to informatics research are at the leading edge worldwide.”

Bringing researchers from different research disciplines together to support their work on solutions for the challenges of our future energy system is a central goal of the Helmholtz initiative ES2050. Supporting young scientists is another. This year’s ES2050 doctoral seminar focused on interactivity and interdisciplinarity but still left enough room for talks and poster presentations by the young scientists.

Together with Wuppertal Institute, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, and the Ecological Research Network (Ecornet), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has established the “Netzwerk Reallabore der Nachhaltigkeit” (Network of Real-World Labs for Sustainability). The network understands itself as a platform of and for real-world labs that conduct research on sustainable development. The Network is open to be joined by other institutions.

As the energy revolution progresses, renewable energies and electromobility will be expanded at the same time. This creates fluctuations in the electrical distribution networks and necessitates new control solutions. In the Kopernikus project ENSURE, the KIT is researching new approaches to the optimal use of resources, more intelligent control of decentralised energy plants and predicting the potential for flexibility in the grid.

The aim of the research is to develop automatic control systems that take into account available energy resources as well as consumer behaviour and react to dynamic changes such as weather and market conditions. Due to their complexity, the resulting optimization problems cannot be solved by classical methods. However, new methods based on metaheuristics developed at the Institute for Automation and Applied Computer Science (IAI) at KIT are promising. "These are algorithms for the approximate solution of optimization problems," explains Clemens Düpmeier of IAI. "This enables us to achieve a good compromise between accuracy and the actual performance of the solution". Machine Learning will also be used in predicting the possible range of flexibility. Training artificial neural networks with large data sets on consumption and supply in distribution networks can also improve the accuracy of predictions.

How can we live sustainably in urban districts? What should our cities look like in the future? To answer these questions, a team of researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) tests new ideas in Karlsruhe’s Oststadt district. The real-world lab “District Future – Urban Lab” is to make urban life more participative and more sustainable. Now, the project has won the “Transformative Science” research prize in the amount of EUR 25,000. As part of the Darmstadt “Transformation Days,” the award will be presented officially on January 16, 2019 by the Wuppertal Institute and the Zempelin Foundation.

At the 9th ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (ACM e-Energy 2018), which took place in Karlsruhe from 12 to 15 June 2018 and dealt with topics in the field of energy informatics, two of the four awards went to scientists at the KIT:

The Audience Award Best Poster went to Alexander Murray, Timm Faulwasser and Veit Hagenmeyer from the KIT‐institute IAI with the poster "Assessment of a Multi‐Agent Mixed‐Integer Optimization Algorithm for Battery Scheduling".

The Audience Award Best Paper went to Lukas Barth, Veit Hagenmeyer, Nicole Ludwig and Dorothea Wagner from the KIT‐institutes IAI and ITI with the paper "How Much Demand Side Flexibility Do We Need? Analyzing where to Exploit Flexibility in Industrial Processes".

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and its Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) have been commissioned again to run the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) for the next five years. This was decided unanimously by the Committee for Education, Research and Technology Assessment of the German Bundestag.

“Energy System 2050” is a joint initiative of the research field energy of the Helmholtz Association. Running until 2019, it is aiming at improving the concrete understanding of energy systems and at developing technological solutions for use by politics and industry.
During the first two years, a software and hardware toolbox was designed and implemented to model, simulate and analyze power grids. The available network models include all areas of network structures and voltage levels. Submodels include examples of distribution grids (KIT Campus Nord, or the entire supply network of the city of Karlsruhe, with voltage levels 400 volts, 20 kV to 110 kV) or transmission grids (Germany network with voltage levels 110-380 kV and HVDC grids, interconnected grids Europe, up to 750 kV). The grid models also include regionalized (conventional) power plants and renewable energy plants (wind, PV, bio) and load models, as well as weather data archives. In the next step, these models and tools will be used to study, develop and optimize the future energy system as part of the energy transition.

KIT Researchers Expect Breakthrough of Flow Technology and Present an Automatic Battery Management System.

The redox flow battery might be a key component in the future power grids: It can be scaled as desired, recycled, and it ensures stable energy storage. Moreover, no scarce resources are needed for its production. So far, however, adaptation of the batteries to each application scenario has been required. In future, this will be accomplished by a novel battery management system developed by researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

In late January 2018, young researchers and renown international speakers gathered in the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, Germany, to discuss research trends on "Nonlinear Dynamics, Optimization and Control of Distributed Energy Systems" during the 661. Heraeus Seminar funded by the Wilhelm-und-Else Heraeus Stiftung. Besides leading experts form academia and research institutions, the list of invited speakers included representatives from major industrial companies such as ABB AG and Siemens AG as well as key experts from the German transmission and distribution system operators TransnetBW GmbH and Westnetz GmbH. Young scientists enjoyed their opportunity to hold a short talk or present their work at the poster sessions. The stimulating and contemplative atmosphere of the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef fostered inspiring scientific discussion among the participating Phd students, young postdocs and the speakers. The seminar was organized by Prof. Joachim Knebel, Dr. Timm Faulwasser (both KIT) and Dr. Martin Robinius, Jun-Prof. Dirk Witthaut (both Forschungszentrum Jülich).

Can intelligent market structures push the energy transition? Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in cooperation with the technology company “LO3 Energy” and the local utility company “EnergieSüdwest AG,” has now started the “Landau Microgrid Project” (LAMP), a rather uncommon field test: Selected private households will test decentralized electricity trading as a model of the future energy market.

Detailed weather forecasts and consumption data are indispensable for a resource-conserving power supply. Network operators and scientists of the Helmholtz Association work together on an intelligent network that can handle the enormous amounts of data. As part of the Helmholtz initiative Energy System 2050, techniques are being developed for efficiently collecting and processing consumption data and, for example, making it available to network operators.

Making life in the Oststadt quarter more ecologically efficient and socially fair and enhancing its economic and cultural sustainability – these are the goals of the “Urban Transition Lab 131” project conducted by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in cooperation with the quarter’s citizens. The researchers have set up this lab in the Karlsruhe Oststadt quarter to investigate possibilities to reduce CO2 emissions, save resources, strengthen neighborhood relations, or improve the health situation of the quarter’s inhabitants. Now, the project was honored twice by the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE).

The researcher of the future initiative “Energy Systems Integration (ESI)” came together for the kick-off Meeting on 24th April in Frankfurt. The coordinator Veit Hagenmeyer (KIT) welcomed the 30 participants of the seven participating centers.The project partners are KIT, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB), Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), and the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ).

Energy systems integration addresses those aspects of the energy system that make all individual components form a whole, i.e. all physical and IT-based interconnections as well as their structures and functions. The project comprises three work packages: The first package covers coupling of power, gas, and heat networks as well as materials flows with IT infrastructures in sustainable, multi-modal energy systems. The second work package focuses on possibilities of flexibilizing processes in energy-intensive industries, such as metal processing, cement processing, and petrochemical industries. The third work package deals with market and regulatory issues of future energy supply that will be based primarily on regenerative sources and centralized-decentralized infrastructures and whose demand will be highly flexible. 

Cellular, interconnected, participative, sustainable, and comfortable: These are the attributes of future smart energy supply. The partners of the C/sells project, among them Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), want to lay the foundation for this to happen. Now, State Secretary Rainer Baake from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) handed over the grant approval to the about 50 partners from industry, the energy sector, and science. In the next four years, numerous partial projects of C/sells are planned to be funded with about EUR 100 million.

ENSURE consortium is one of four “Kopernikus Projects for the Energy Turnaround” of the Federal Government. The consortium is led by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), core partners are RWTH Aachen, the utility company E.ON, network operator TENNET TSO, and the technology corporations of Siemens and ABB. Another 15 partners have joined the consortium. Work is aimed at developing and testing efficient and viable grid structures combining centralized and decentralized energy supply.

Extension of futureproof energy systems is one of the major challenges faced by society in the next decades. These energy systems will have to be able to flexibly cope with different inputs from renewable energy sources and fluctuating demands. For this purpose, complex computerized solutions will be required. Within the framework of a new research training group funded by DFG, young researchers of KIT will develop methods to evaluate data from complex energy supply systems and identify optimization options. The research training group Energy Status Data will start on May 01, 2016.

The Energy Lab 2.0 at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a smart platform to analyze the interaction of components of future energy systems. Today, the project associated with an investment of EUR 22 million was started officially. The Energy Lab 2.0 aims at an acceleration of the Energiewende and in particular the integration of renewable energies in electricity production. It can be used to test closely to reality new approaches to stabilizing power grids. The platform pools electric, thermal, and chemical energy flows as well as new information and communciation technologies. Project partners are the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), both members of the Helmholtz Association. The Energy Lab 2.0 is financed by the Federal Republic of Germany and the state of Baden-Württemberg.