In order to reach the targets set by the Paris Climate Agreement, Germany aims to shift its electricity supply largely to renewable energy by 2045. The problem is that photovoltaic cells and wind turbines produce electricity at a fluctuating rather than continuous rate. In order to be able to cope with this kind of fluctuating energy generation, Germany requires an energy grid that is adapted accordingly. This is also required because today’s power grid is only designed to transport electricity in one direction: from power plants to consumers. However, because more and more consumers are producing their own electricity, for example using photovoltaic cells, the grid needs to be able to transport electricity in both directions.

A new power grid is therefore an essential requirement for a successful energy transition, since in future, electricity will also become a raw material for gas, heating, and transport. Power-to-X technologies can transform electricity into other forms of energy, for example fuels (power-to-fuel), gases (power-to-gas), and heat (power-to-heat).

Scientists call the connecting of electricity, transport, heating, and gas “sector coupling”. In future, Germany needs an energy grid that makes sector coupling possible. The Kopernikus project ENSURE develops potential concepts for such a grid and the route to its realization – taking all available options into account. Up to 2019, the project focused on laying the necessary theoretical foundations: What might the future of energy supply look like? What conditions must be met to establish such a grid? And what problems could occur as a result? In February 2020, based on the work done over the previous few years, ENSURE began real-world preparations for establishing the energy grid of the future. On the one hand, grid operators, industry, and scientists are working together to develop a specific concept for a model region in which, from 2022, they plan to test ENSURE’s evaluated approaches for the energy grid of the future. This region, known as “Energiekosmos ENSURE”, is located in the north of Germany, where an especially large number of future requirements can already be tested today. The current phase of ENSURE examines what requirements are met locally and what concrete technologies can be established in the Energiekosmos region. This examination also considers to what extent the measures tested could be transferred to other regions of Germany, and what is needed to achieve the necessary transformation to equip the energy grid for the future across the entire country. On the other hand, scientists also continue to monitor the current developments in the field of energy supply. If new approaches for potential future energy grids emerge, these are integrated into the conceptual design of ENSURE’s practical phase.

Innovative operating equipment that is necessary to operate the future grid but is currently not yet available is also developed by the ENSURE partners and tested both in computer simulations and in the first real-world pilot systems.

The goal of the second phase of ENSURE is to draft an overall systemic concept for the energy supply that is embedded in the existing socio-economic framework, and to ensure transferability of the results within Germany and Europe, with a time horizon of 2045. In the course of these activities, the concept for the planned Energiekosmos ENSURE region is to be finalized and tested, both as a digital model via computer simulations and within the first pilot systems. Following this, a test grid is to be set up directly on site in the subsequent project phase.