The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine highlights the heavy dependence of Germany's energy supply on imports of fossil fuels such as gas, oil and coal. The disruptive geopolitical changes are challenging our society to rapidly advance its own sovereignty in the areas of energy and raw materials supply - and at the same time not to lose sight of the goal of climate neutrality. Helmholtz Energy faces up to its social responsibility: together with our partners from politics and industry, we want to accelerate central research activities in order to contribute to our security of supply with a rapid transfer of key technologies and know-how. To this end, Helmholtz Energy has developed four initiatives in direct response to the Russian war of aggression:

Flyer Zeitenwende

The energy system of the future will be significantly determined by renewable energies. A faster and better transformation towards climate neutrality means significantly increased independence from imports of fossil fuels.

The complexity of this transformation process imposes great challenges. We provide (co-)simulations and analyses that allow energy suppliers and decision-makers to examine complex interrelationships in advance such as "re-bundling", i.e. the joint consideration of electricity generation and electricity grids of different operators and grid levels with the simultaneous consideration of the progressive coupling of electricity and gas grids. The focus of RESUR is to provide proactive and reactive decision-making bases on the short-term, especially for current events. The aim is to operate RESUR in the long-term and to adapt the model toolbox to new challenges in constant dialogue with policy-makers and industry partners.

Objectives:

• “Bottom-up” models for the electricity and gas sector to assess the security of supply and robustness of transport networks.
• Models and tools for co-simulation of heat, electricity and gas.
• Provision of a meta-database and toolbox for the analysis and evaluation of options for action by business, society and politics in the event of disruptive events in the energy and commodity markets.

Coordination: Veit Hagenmeyer, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Participating Centers:

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
German Aerospace Center (DLR) – associated