Technologies for the Future Power Grid

The design of the future energy system is one of the most important problems of our society. In Germany, the development of the energy system is driven by efforts to prevent global climate change and the nuclear power phase-out. As one contribution to emission reduction, the share of renewable energy sources increased significantly and is planned to further increase. With the growing importance of electric mobility and a further increase of renewable feed-in from wind and photovoltaic power generating units, it is foreseeable that the existing electrical power grid will not meet future requirements.

The essential objective of the Helmholtz Energy Alliance "Technologies for the Future Power Grid" is the development of solutions and the conduction of systems analyses aimed at improving flexibility and system management of the electrical distribution and transmission grids. Thereby, gas networks for energy storage will be taken into account in addition to purely electrical storage systems. Key topics in the field of technology development are

• Intelligent system management in distribution grids

• System management and system stability of a hybrid transportation grid
  

• Integration of storages into the future power grid.
  

These topics will be complemented by a

• Comparative technology evaluation.

 Research focuses at IIP (KIT)

• Development of a techno-economic model for identifying optimal overall economic development paths for the grid and generating facilities.

• Development of a method for the evaluation of storage systems, taking into account existing uncertainties

• Multi-criteria technology evaluation and derivation of recommendations