Energy Management Concepts

Innovative networked automation systems for buildings and neighborhoods

© Fraunhofer IEE
Communication and control scheme for the flexibilization of heat pumps

Energy-efficient buildings place special demands on the design and operation of the entire system technology for heating, cooling and ventilation. Due to the increasing merging of the electricity and heating sectors in the supply of buildings and neighborhoods, innovative automation systems must optimally coordinate fluctuating energy generation (based on wind and solar energy) and the respective heat and electricity requirements.

Some examples from research and industrial projects show the success of such strategies.

Innovative office real estate

Center for eco-conscious construction, Kassel

Innovative approaches for larger buildings integrate forecasting systems for weather and building use into conventional automation systems by combining them with model-based decision-making algorithms. Such systems have been integrated and successfully tested at the Center for Environmentally Conscious Building (ZUB) in Kassel, for example, using newly developed interfaces and algorithms in the building management system.

Sector-coupled system control

Heat pump systems can provide important system services in the future energy system by acting as flexible loads in the electricity grid. The potential of this load shifting through the development of new control strategies with regard to the utilization of thermal storage in buildings is being developed and tested.

Digitalization in the district heating sector

Der Ansatz der Lastverschiebung lässt sich analog auf leitungsgebundene Wärmeversorgungssysteme aus dem Bereich der Nah- und Fernwärme übertragen. Eine Gesamteffizienzsteigerungen durch den Einsatz von Informations- und Kommunikationsstrukturen zur optimierten und prognosegestützten Steuerung von Wärmerzeugungs- und Nutzeranlagen ist dadurch realisierbar.The load shifting approach can be applied analogously to pipeline-based heat supply systems in the local and district heating sector. An overall increase in efficiency can be achieved through the use of information and communication structures for the optimized and forecast-based control of heat generation and user systems.

The activation of heat flexibility through control technology enables the systemic integration of decentralized heat consumers into power plant deployment planning.