skaFLEX

Driven by the decarbonization of the heating sector, two major developments are emerging in the heat supply sector. On the one hand, heat supply systems are becoming increasingly complex: the combination of various efficient heat sources such as heat pumps, CHP plants and power-to-heat plants with purely renewable sources such as solar thermal energy and biomass is creating complex systems whose control and regulation is becoming significantly more challenging than that of conventional gas boilers, for example. On the other hand, linking these technologies means that the heat, gas and electricity sectors are more closely interlinked. In combination with other decentralized energy systems such as PV and battery storage and e-mobility, this results in decentralized, complex and flexible systems whose operation must be coordinated internally and can also be harmonized with external influencing variables such as the spot markets for electricity and gas. As a result, market signals reach decentralized systems. From a system perspective, the opportunity here is to increase the flexibility of the energy supply and thus make more efficient use of the various energy sources.

In addition to a heat pump and a storage tank, a modern central heating system often consists of a CHP unit, a power-to-heat system, a solar thermal system and possibly a few natural gas-fired peak load boilers. This mixture of heat generators must be operated optimally, whereby the operating costs are determined by various external factors such as electricity prices, weather conditions, gas prices, CO2 prices and others.

Such solutions already exist for larger heating centers and are offered by dezera, among others. As the effort required for optimization is independent of the size of the respective units, but the revenue opportunities decrease with decreasing system size, these optimization solutions are currently not used for smaller heating systems in the output range of 100kW to 500kW.

In the predecessor project morFLEX, generic solutions for tapping demand side management (DSM) flexibility potential in industry were developed. The focus here was on researching generic modeling approaches for the simple integration of different flexibilities. Based on the results of this project, solutions are now to be further developed in order to increase the degree of automation during installation and operation and thus enable flexibilization for a narrower segment (heat supply) in the small sector.

As part of the skaFLEX project, technical solutions are to be developed that offer a cost-efficient way of operating complex system concepts in the small to medium power range in a market-optimized and CO2-efficient manner.

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The skaFLEX project is coordinated, managed and implemented by the CC4E's cooperation partner in this project, dezera GmbH.

dezera GmbH is a spin-off of scientific employees of HAW Hamburg, who have gained a high degree of expertise in energy economics and technology through several previous research projects in the fields of smart grids and demand side management (DSM). The corporate goal of dezera is to increase the flexibility of the energy system by making it easy to integrate and use flexible electrical systems.