Digitaler Wandel in Energiesystemen

Forschung

Das Fachgebiet Digitaler Wandel in Energiesystemen ist eine deutschlandweit und international anerkannte akademische Institution mit energiewirtschaftlichem Schwerpunkt. Innerhalb des Instituts für Energietechnik der TU Berlin nimmt das Fachgebiet interdisziplinäre Aufgaben wahr und beschäftigt sich mit den komplexen Wechselwirkungen zwischen Technik, Politik, Gesellschaft und dem Energiesystem. Das Team zeichnet sich durch einen breiten fachlichen Hintergrund verschiedener Ingenieurs-, Wirtschafts- und Geisteswissenschaften aus, auf deren Ansätze und Methoden sich die Arbeit stützt.

Laufende Forschungsprojekte

ProjektBeschreibungZeitraumFördergeberVerantwortliche
Resilient ProjectThe energy transition faces many uncertainties, but planning tools are often deterministic. Our proposal will develop the first truly multi-vector energy infrastructure planning tool that represents this uncertain environment, both at a regional and national as well as the European level. We will build on the existing widely-used, open-source, sector-coupled energy planning tool for Europe, PyPSA-Eur, and add stochastic optimisation capabilities as well as a deeper representation of industry transformation, e-fuel conversion, biomass and carbon capture infrastructure. We will look at uncertainties that include the cost of fuels and technologies, hydrogen availability, network expansion delays for electricity, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, value chain restructuring in industry, imports of e-fuels and secondary materials, renewables build-out and social acceptance. We will examine novel computational techniques to address stochastic problems in a performant way. For this proposal, we have assembled a team of leading academic researchers and need-owners from industry who are at the cutting edge of energy system modelling. We will demonstrate the capabilities of our planning tool in several case studies for resilient infrastructure planning, together with our need-owners in France, Germany, Sweden and Finland. We plan several workshops and training events with a broader circle of need owners and stakeholders to ensure a wide uptake of our innovative project results.December 2023 - November 2026CETPartnership project RESILIENTProf. Dr. Tom Brown
SysGF ProjectThe research project "SysGF: Systemic Analysis of Large-Scale Heat Storage in District Heating" analyzes the technical and economic potential of large-scale heat storage in combination with renewable heat generation in German district heating networks. For this purpose, the SysGF project integrates district heating networks into a detailed model of the German energy system and optimizes them under consideration of coupled sectors. The systemic approach enables a realistic mapping of energy-economic, technological and geographical conditions against the background of climate neutrality by the year 2045. In close cooperation with partners from science and industry, it will be worked out which transformation measures in the district heating systems are most cost-effective for an efficient revision of the whole energy system and how these can be promoted by regulation.November 2023 - November 2026Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (BMWK)Prof. Dr. Tom Brown
Kopernikus Project AriadneAriadne explores ways to transform the energy system and achieve climate neutrality in Germany by 2045. It is a large collaborative project with over 25 research partners from scientific and non-governmental institutions in Germany. We will leverage our PyPSA-Eur model in conjunction with the Remind model of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) to model the overall system. We will examine robust and cost-effective investment strategies across a wide range of uncertain futures, including the development of new technologies, different fuel and investment costs, import volumes of synthetic fuels, expansion rates of power grids, weather conditions and other factors. The interplay of electricity, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and synthetic fuel infrastructures with industrial production facilities both domestically and abroad will be in focus. The goal is to draw robust policy conclusions for the further development of German’s energy transition.September 2023 - August 2026Bundesministerium für Bildung und ForschungProf. Dr. Tom Brown
Integration of hydrogen and carbon management into energy system modelsThe goal is to improve the representation of hydrogen and carbon management in highly-resolved energy system models for the United States and Europe. This will allow us to carry out research into the future role of clean hydrogen and carbon capture in deep decarbonization scenarios. All code and research data will be made freely available with open source licences.October 2021 - September 2024Breakthrough Energy SciencesProf. Dr. Tom Brown, Dr. Fabian Hofmann, Christoph Tries

Abgeschlossene Forschungsprojekte

ProjektBeschreibungZeitraumFördergeberVerantwortliche
24/7 carbon-free power purchase agreementsTraditional Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) for renewable energy have seen rapid growth in recent years, but they only match supply and demand on average over a longer period such as a year. There is increasing interest from corporations such as Google to match their demand with clean energy supply on a truly 24/7 basis, whether that is using variable renewables paired with storage, or using dispatchable clean sources such as geothermal power. In 2020 Google committed to operating entirely on 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE) at all of its data centres and campuses worldwide by 2030. In this project we will explore different designs for a 24/7 carbon-free PPA, and how their deployment affects the rest of the energy system.November 2021 - January 2024GoogleProf. Dr. Tom Brown