Smart Energy – a journey plan

We certainly have many challenges to face in our world in the coming years, on many levels and in many ways.

One of these challenges is certainly a reliable, efficient, affordable and flexible energy supply. This applies mainly to the supply of electrical energy, without which hardly any activity is possible in our world. This general journey planning is aimed at small and large consumers, as well as producers of energy, who would like to get a first overview of the coming developments or opportunities to help shape them.

Particularly in the case of technical infrastructures, there is the opportunity – based on societal demands – to create the foundations for this on a technical and conceptual level with excellent experts and to build the necessary foundations. This technology (especially in the case of infrastructures) must be complete and functioning before consumers and producers start using it.

There is no doubt that in the future, energy distribution systems and IT systems will continue to grow together in the future. This is already evident in the title "Smart Energy", which brings together "the best of both worlds".

Different travel groups, same destination

(As mentioned above, we are looking at the topic from the perspective of electric energy. Of course, this also applies to other forms of energy, but that would completely go beyond the scope of this article).

Energy producers / manufacturers

Companies in the energy production sector are typically large producers and have generated very significant revenues on the energy side with industrial scales. They have also typically had relatively little effort on the networked IT systems side.

For this, very reliable technical controls or systems have been and still are used, but they are not or only minimally digitally networked – partly for historical reasons, partly also for safety reasons. This situation is both an obstacle to IT-based innovation and an essential basis for reliable operation – a remarkable area of tension. In addition, these producers are economically and technically linked to transmission system operators and distribution system operators – the field of tension is thus also multi-layered.

Energy distributors / distributors

For a long time (before the advent of decentralised, renewable energy sources), the distribution of electrical energy followed the basic principle of "from big to small" or, as expressed in the energy world, "from top to bottom". From the large power plants, the electricity flows through extra-high or high-voltage grids via various intermediate stages into the low-voltage grids to the consumers. Large industrial consumers sometimes obtain electricity from one of these intermediate stages.

These large supply networks are subject to constant change and are already being digitised in many places as a result of these operator requirements. It is a very complex environment with various digital interfaces and different interconnections, which cannot be classified here.

Energy consumers / consumers

Consumers are typically characterised on in terms of quantity and timing. Private consumers are obviously to be distinguished from large, energy-hungry industrial operations – the number of which is, of course, also to be distinguished.

In general, fairly long-term planning and contracting is common. Classically, energy consumption can be seen as a relatively static issue – for example, there are "typical load profiles" in which statistical statements (developed over years) are made about private households. Dynamic changes or the decentralised production of one's own electricity has only recently been added.

It will be a shared journey

A clear trend is emerging: in a networked world, producers and consumers are increasingly coming together at various levels.

Consumers who are also producers are known as prosumers. In this case, electricity is produced, which is (partly) consumed by this producer.

If there are several of these prosumers, communication, and the flow of information between all participants, becomes increasingly important.

The following examples of communication will illustrate this:

• Many navigation apps that communicate with each other dynamically guide us around traffic jams or other danger spots. Here, too, the apps are both consumers and producers, creating a considerable amount of value by processing and passing on information.
• Perceptible almost everywhere: “Goods flows" are no longer conceivable without “information flows".
• Today, services are specially adapted to the needs of the customer. The basis for this is diverse, valid information about the customers and their needs. Based on further information, customers also select their service providers, or more precisely, their offers. Information flows in both directions.
  In a modern energy industry, too, a lot of such information flows (frequently) between all participants to be able to offer optimal products and to implement optimal use. This also happens during use, enabling entirely new product features.
• IoT is far more than just in the starting blocks, with many initiatives working on centralised and decentralised solutions on how to network devices via the Internet in a meaningful, secure and manufacturer-independent way, and of course on the question of why? The first production-ready, networked products are proving their usefulness.
• Photovoltaic (PV) systems supply electricity to both the home and the public grid. Information about where electricity is available at a low price or which grids still have reserves is then essential.
• Solutions for selling electricity between neighbours will be offered, as well as improved solutions for marketing and purchasing electricity in a decentralised manner. Various innovations will make energy trading more decentralised, diverse and flexible.

Travel Expectations

From the backpacker to the 5-star traveller, or

Energy producers and consumers expect reliability, comfort, economy, clear regulations and available technology. Transparency and traceability are becoming increasingly important.

For example, smart grid stations are being planned in cities and towns to supply electricity. These grid stations should also be able to efficiently handle additional PV electricity generated from rooftops and provide operators (e.g., municipal utilities) with meaningful data for this purpose. The operators can then use this data to make sensible plans for economically and technically attractive developments. In addition to these "intelligent grid stations", the operators also need the necessary IT infrastructures and the guarantee of reliable IT operation.

For some time now, there have been various pilot projects, research projects and working groups that have started with these expectations.

As of today, "intelligent grid stations" and digitalisation in this area are rather an exception or rarity. Currently, the expectations cannot be adequately fulfilled, neither from the point of view of the energy producers nor the energy consumers.
See "Gutachten Digitalisierung der Energiewende Top topic 2: Regulation, flexibilisation and sector coupling" by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, 2018, p. 13, German Text.

IT infrastructures are

• at the economic level, e.g., marketplaces or data sources as the basis for investment decisions
• at the technical level, e.g., control systems including the necessary security features
• at the regulatory level, responsible for auditing, monitoring or billing systems
• at the political level, as a source of information for decision-making.

In implementation, there are difficulties at all these levels mentioned above. Missing and dysfunctional solutions can be identified as recurring patterns in a wide variety of thematic areas of transformation processes, e.g., in the difficulties of digitalisation in the health sector or in the overarching, integrating digitalisation in demands for future mobility, and so on.

This can be seen, for example, in the demands “Digitale Transformation für die Energiewende – Energiewende für die digitale Transformation” of the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), German Text.

The task of the experts is to recognise these patterns and to develop and implement efficient solutions for tasks in these areas. Part of the task will be to find these experts in the first step, to develop competences together, and then to implement them.

Markus Leist - (CC BY-SA 4.0)