Background
Today’s energy infrastructure is increasingly evolving into an interdependent smart energy system. Through sector coupling using suitable technologies, previously separate areas, such as electricity and heat, are being linked. In this context, suitable modeling approaches are needed to examine interactions among different subsystems within the overarching energy system and to analyze entire regions using so-called Urban Building Energy Modeling (UBEM) approaches.
In this context, the research team at JRZ DeESoS has explored ways to model complex (energy) systems, and smart grids in particular, in various publications and has developed methods for doing so, including co-simulation approaches that can create a connection between previously separate subject areas and simulations.
The research team at Zentrum Alpines Bauen (ZAB), in turn, has expertise in detailed, dynamic, physics-based simulation of buildings and, subsequently, entire districts and cities and can point to various publications on modeling buildings and building systems. The increasing complexity and interconnectedness of energy systems described above require interdisciplinary exchange of expertise to enable a holistic perspective.
The two core topics from the Departments of Design and Green Engineering (ED) and Information Technologies and Digitalisation (IT) offer an excellent opportunity to collaborate, complement existing expertise, and further develop current core competencies. In this research project, the goal is to link modeling approaches for smart grids with detailed dynamic simulation of buildings and cities and, in doing so, develop energy load profiles. Methods like these support European and national efforts to decarbonize and optimize energy supply and provide an approach that can be transferred to other regions and countries.
Project Objective
The starting point described above highlights future challenges for our energy systems, such as the growing complexity and interconnectedness of previously separate areas and sectors. This makes interdisciplinary collaboration across system boundaries indispensable if we are to create suitable, future-ready solutions. The two departments, ED and IT, have built expertise in modeling smart grids within JRZ DeESoS and in detailed, dynamic simulation of buildings and cities within ZAB. The overarching objective of this research project is to connect these two perspectives and methods and thereby enable a holistic view of energy systems and energy flows.
Specifically, the project connects the respective competencies through co-simulation. This includes linking the existing models, as well as scaling and simplifying them into a jointly usable overall model. Using jointly identified key parameters, this model is intended to provide a basis for addressing future questions and to enable a holistic perspective across the previous individual system boundaries. In doing so, the research areas should complement one another in an ideal way through their respective expertise and jointly address the interdisciplinary questions that increasingly arise.
The project pursues the following objectives:
> Further development of core competencies in modeling smart grids and in modeling buildings and cities, including smart cities
> Linking existing methods to enable a holistic perspective across heat and electricity, by coupling smart grid models with UBEM models
> Exchange of core competencies in system modeling
> Development and strengthening of cooperation between ED and IT, and thus between ZAB and JRZ DeESoS
> A (supra-)regional pioneering role in digital modeling of energy infrastructure from producers to end users, both private and commercial or industrial
> Creation of a jointly usable model structure, tested and demonstrated by mapping system variants
If this linkage succeeds, it will open up many new subject areas and opportunities to address questions that could not previously be tackled, and at a level of detail not available to date. In the future, linking the two models can serve as a basis for further development of energy infrastructure and for addressing related questions for energy service providers and energy producers, the federal government, states, municipalities, and other stakeholders, as well as for additional collaborative research activities.