Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System TechnologyHow and with which technologies do we shape the innovative implementation of the heat transition in buildings and cities?
The provision of heat is responsible for almost half of the national final energy consumption in Germany. This makes this sector a key factor when considering and transforming the energy system.
With regard to the heating, cooling and power supply of buildings and districts, novel concepts can create technical solutions that respond flexibly to the temporally fluctuating supply of renewable energies on the user side. Increased flexibility can be achieved with sector coupling in heating and cooling supply. Combining larger building complexes or districts result in synergies in terms of economic efficiency and sustainability, but also in an increased complexity of the technical systems. So-called low-exergy (LowEx) overall concepts for renewable, central (e.g. low temperature district heating systems) or decentralized heating and cooling supply are promising in this context.
The core topics of this area of expertise are the development of innovative system approaches for the thermal energy supply of buildings, districts and cities, planning and simulation tools for comprehensive energy, and heat supply concepts for cities and municipalities.
We perform techno-economic evaluation of different supply options and we develop operation management strategies for the optimized and grid-serving use of heat generators (electricity or heat) and for the overall system.
Another focus lies on the development of integral artificial intelligence-based energy management systems and the use of digital process management and control in the entire supply chain (generation to use) for the operational optimization of heat supply tasks in urban areas.