dynOpt-En - Energy manager for the supply- and demand-oriented connection of energy sources

Short description of the project

In order to achieve the German government's goal of a nearly climate-neutral building stock by 2050, the relevant national and European regulations have been increasingly tightened. Increased demands are being placed on the building envelope and building services engineering as well as a growing share of renewable energies. The tendency is therefore clearly moving towards multi-generation systems with integration of renewable energies. Since energy demand and energy supply of renewable energy sources are not congruent, shortages and surpluses occur with a time lag. Therefore, the storage and dynamically optimized use of different energy sources is of utmost importance. The intelligent balancing of supply and demand is an essential prerequisite, especially for sector coupling between heat and electricity.

Project goals

The central objective of the project is the development and testing of a dynamic optimisation module for the supply- and demand-based connection of energy sources. In order to monitor and optimise heat generation in buildings and neighbourhoods, the software continuously calculates forecasts, e.g. for the next 24 hours, from the meter data available for energy billing in combination with weather forecasts and other sensor data (e.g. boiler temperature). These are used to coordinate the operating times of different heat generators, such as gas boilers, heat pumps, CHP units, possibly combined with photovoltaic or solar heating systems, optimised according to costs or CO2 emissions. Thanks to the consistent design of the Energy Manager as a web-based online service, hardly any on-site installations are necessary. All data is available via data interface.

 

Project results

For the operation of the dynOpt energy manager a gateway and corresponding heat meters and sensors are offered. With already installed suitable measurement technology and networked heat generators, dynOpt-En can also be used without own hardware and works via common interfaces with meters, sensors, weather data and generation systems of different suppliers

The essential components of dynOpt-En are:

• Data interface for input and output
• Optimizer for Predictive Management
• Web portal for monitoring and visualization
• Hardware for acquisition and control (optional)
  

The special feature of the dynOpt energy manager are the algorithms for prediction and optimization, which do not require extensive individual programming. Via a gateway, the data of the meters already available for consumption billing are transferred to the energy manager in 15-minute resolution. For this purpose, either gateways developed by us can be used as a plug-and-play solution or already installed data collectors and controls can be integrated. Via the gateway, the energy sources are switched in a time-optimized manner. Thereby the existing controller of the heat generators is not replaced, but only the operating requirement is set via interfaces provided for this purpose (for example the SG-Ready interface of a heat pump). The same applies to CHP units or the switching of electric heating elements.

The dynOpt energy manager is particularly meant for commercial objects such as multi-family houses and quarters, with which several components such as heat pumps, PV plant, solar heat plant, gas boiler or BHKW are operated coupled with one another. Furthermore dynOpt-En monitors energy consumption and costs and compares the real values with the expected values. In this way, malfunctions can be detected promptly and signaled via a clear visualization or reported to the operator.

Project partners

• Fraunhofer IOSB (coordination)
• Consolar Solare Energiesysteme GmbH
• Comgy GmbH
• Klaus Rauch consulting engineer (subcontract)