Dr.–Ing. Richard Eckerle (UniBw H)
A key research focus at the Chair of Electrical Power Supply at the UniBw M is the interactive analysis of renewable energy systems. The goal is to develop tools that can be used to address key design questions regarding such systems without the immediate use of complex simulation software. Key areas of focus include the cost-optimized sizing of photovoltaic, wind, and storage technologies, the evaluation of alternative technology pathways, and the investigation of the effects of changing technical and economic constraints.
Answering these questions requires a comprehensive, pre-prepared database of system calculations. On this basis, relationships can be explored interactively with graphical support, and suitable system configurations can be quickly identified. A corresponding approach for pure electricity systems is already being pursued by the web-based application RESAT (resat-app.de), developed at the department. It is based on extensive multi-year simulations with gridded variation of plant sizes as well as on supplementary cost-optimal reference calculations using the energy system software Calliope.
In the planned project, this approach will be extended to energy systems that include additional heat consumption. This will significantly increase both the number of technologies to be considered and the scope of possible configurations. In addition to electrical generators and storage systems, thermal consumers and sector-coupled conversion technologies must also be taken into account. This leads to a significantly higher number of possible plant configurations and a rapidly growing need for simulation and optimization calculations.
The central challenge of the project therefore lies in the efficient execution of a very large number of cost-optimal system calculations over long simulation periods with hourly resolution. The goal is to develop and implement a highly parallel, efficient optimization calculation based on Calliope in conjunction with the Gurobi solver. This is intended to lay the groundwork for preparing analyses of complex electricity- and heat-coupled energy systems within a practical timeframe and making the results available in an advanced interactive design tool.