adesso heads up 5Gain research project for intelligent urban energy management

The energy market of the future is all about renewable, decentralised energy sources with smart connectivity. The aim here is to control local energy distribution grids in metropolitan areas using artificial intelligence, ensuring that energy production, consumption and storage remains in perfect equilibrium. Case in point: Residents of urban communities will charge their electric vehicles overnight in the future, relieving the burden on the power grid and saving money in the process.

As part of the BMWi-backed research project, 5G Infrastructures for Cellular Energy Systems With AI, research institutions, companies and the city of Dortmund are joining forces to develop 5G concepts for power distribution grids. They divide the grid into “cells”, which allow decentralised and largely autonomous load and feed-in management.

All of the cell’s units are to be connected using the cutting-edge, high-speed 5G mobile data standard. adesso will be developing a solution for smart contracts that is based on the latest blockchain technology. This will enable feed-in and consumption volumes to be tracked reliably in the decentralised grid.

“The unique nature of this national research project lies in the combination of 5G, the next generation of mobile internet; innovative blockchain technology; and machine-learning algorithms,” explains adesso project manager Christoph Hecht.

Start-up urban Energy, which specialises in e-mobility and energy management at community level, will be lending its support to the project by developing an energy data hub. The hub controls energy generation and consumption in regional grids with optimum cost efficiency using machine learning technology. “Our platform allows urban districts to establish and control their own energy management systems,” says urban Energy CEO Paul Dittrich. “The platform benefits energy producers and energy consumers in equal measure, while relieving the burden on our power grids as well as decreasing costs, energy usage and therefore carbon emissions, and enabling individualised tariffs in real time.”

The 5Gain research project is scheduled to run until the end of November 2022. As the leader of the syndicate, adesso is working with the following companies and institutions:

• DEW21 Dortmunder Energie- und Wasserversorgung GmbH
• TU Dortmund University
• City of Dortmund
• PHYSEC GmbH
• urban ENERGY GmbH
• Fraunhofer-Institut für Techno- und Wirtschaftsmathematik ITWM
• RWTH Aachen University
• innogy SE

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

adesso will be exhibiting at E-world energy & water, Europe’s leading trade fair for the energy industry, from 11 to 13 February 2020 in Essen and is available to answer any questions you may have on the 5Gain project in hall 1, booth 217.