The aim of the project is to use the district of Ahrweiler as an example to develop and implement methods and tools with which virtual power plants, including private-owned micro-plants and emergency power supplies, can be established as the nuclei of energy regions.
Subproject: Interactive and discursive design of sustainable nuclei for energy regions
Project coordination: Dr. Bert Droste-Franke
IQIB team: Dr. Markus Voge, Dr. Davy van Doren
Duration: April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2028
Funding: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE)
Partner: Simon Process Engineering GmbH (SiPE)
Implementation team: Dirk Barbye (Landkreis Cochem-Zell), Prof. Dr. Sören Becker (Universität Marburg), Karen Derendorf (DLR Institut für vernetzte Energiesysteme, Oldenburg), Andreas Döhrer (Sterr-Kölln & Partner), Michael Dötsch (Westnetz), Adrienne Gäb (Klimaschutzmanagement, Kreisverwaltung Ahrweiler), Prof. Dr. Martin Kaltschmitt (TU Hamburg-Harburg), Dr. Annedore Mittreiter (Fraunhofer UMSICHT), Prof. Dr. Ingo Sass (GFZ Potsdam), Prof. Dr. Miranda Schreurs (TU München), Prof. Dr. Urban Weber (TH Bingen), Christophe Vianden (Ahrtalwerke), Andreas Zedler (Zukunft Mittelahr AöR).
Objective: The affordable and secure supply of electricity and heat using renewable energies is an important goal of the energy transition. One way to achieve this goal is by intelligently coordinating generation and consumption within an energy region using a virtual power plant. However, in rural regions, this only works if small producers and consumers are also involved. Against this background, the project aims to develop and compile transferable methods and instruments that can be applied to achieve transdisciplinary economic implementation of small-scale plants in virtual power plants. This will create nuclei for such energy regions.
In addition to project management, IQIB's work focuses on developing and applying analysis and visualisation tools to create multi-criteria optimised scenarios. These scenarios are used in transdisciplinary deliberative-discursive processes to develop concepts for seed regions based on virtual power plants. The design tools to be developed and applied consist of various elements. A significant part of these tools serve to analyse and visualise the scenarios. When applied, they reveal the respective possibilities and open them to discussion. These tools are supplemented by methods and tools in other areas, such as the analysis of the framework conditions of the seed cells, conception and implementation, monitoring, and transfer.
Further information: EnArgus