Grid Control Lab A realistic environment for digital twins of complex and wide-area energy systems
The energy transition faces significant challenges: integrating renewable energy, increasing the efficiency of energy systems, and ensuring a reliable energy supply, to name a few. The Grid Control Lab enables the exploration of solutions to these complex problems by providing a unique space for innovative research and development.
Research as Key for the Energy Transition
The urgent need to address the challenges of the energy transition requires intensive research efforts. The Grid Control Lab is a place where scientists and energy industry experts come together to work on ground-breaking solutions. Here, digital twins of energy systems can be tested, analysed, and validated to gain a better understanding of their operation and to investigate innovative technologies in a realistic setting. The Grid Control Lab also offers coupling possibilities with other labs, such as the OFFIS automation lab for hardware-in-the-loop simulations.
Understanding Challenges, Developing Solutions
The complexity of energy systems requires thorough analysis and simulation to develop effective solutions. In the Grid Control Lab, realistic scenarios can be created to examine the impact of various factors on the energy system. From integrating renewable energy to optimizing grid operation and control, the lab identifies and tackles the challenges of the energy transition. For instance, the ongoing digitalization of the power grid presents both opportunities and challenges. As more sensors and actuators are installed, grid control systems and their operators must adequately manage this influx of information. Modern software systems must access not only legacy data sources but also a multitude of new data sources. The lab also investigates the impact of information system threats.
Testing and Evaluating Innovations
In the Grid Control Lab, our task is not only to understand the challenges of the energy transition but also to test and evaluate developed solutions, particularly digital twins, in a realistic environment. This is facilitated by connecting and integrating other OFFIS labs, such as the automation or agent lab, to perform co-simulations of the systems represented with hardware-in-the-loop or agents-in-the-loop. Through targeted visualizations and interactions with the digital twin, the human component is always a part of the lab.
The Grid Control Lab is more than just a lab—it is an environment where digital twins are run, and their behaviour in various scenarios is tested and monitored. Whether these twins represent energy systems, production systems, or other types of systems, doesn't matter. By utilizing containerization, orchestration, and modern DevOps methods, any twin can be instantiated in the lab.
Innovation Goals
The ROC group focuses on, but is not limited to, the following innovation goals:
- establishing a demonstration and validation platform for research and development projects,
- establishing a simple tool-supported deployment of digital twins, and
- enabling human-in-the-loop research.
Persons
- Dr. Michael Brand (Contact Person)
- Nils Huxoll
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Projects
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OpenEnergyTwin
Duration: 2024 - 2026
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Publications
2025
Resilience Monitoring for the Digitalisation of the Energy Transition (ReMoDigital)
Bert Droste-Franke and Gabriele Fohr and Davy van Doren and Markus Voge and Moritz Bergfeld and Urte Brand-Daniels and Karen Derendorf and Marc Dziakowski and Hans Christian Gils and Ghinwa Harb and Gandhi Pragada and Tudor Mocanu and Sophie Nägele and Henrik Netz and Martin Plener and Angelika Schulz and Henning Wigger and Madhura Yeligeti and Michael Brand and Batoul Hage Hassan and Anand Narayan and Sigrid Prehofer; January / 2025
2024
Applying Trust for Operational States of ICT-Enabled Power Grid Services
Michael Brand, Anand Narayan, Sebastian Lehnhoff; April / 2024
Modelling the propagation of properties across services in cyber-physical energy systems
Anand Narayan, Michael Brand, Nils Huxoll, Batoul Hage Hassan, Sebastian Lehnhoff ; March / 2024
Poster Abstract: A Digital Twin Platform Applied to Hydrogen Electrolyzers
AMIT KUMAR SINGH, JELKE WIBBEKE, AMIN RAEISZADEH, NILS HUXOLL, MICHAEL BRAND; DACH+ Conference on Energy Informatics 2024; October / 2024
Resilience Quantification of Interdependent Power and ICT Systems using Operational State Classification
Anand Narayan; July / 2024
2023
ASSESS – Anomaliesensitive State Estimation mit Streaming Systemen in Smart Grids
Michael Brand; December / 2023
Assess: anomaly sensitive state estimation with streaming systems
Brand, Michael and Engel, Dominik and Lehnhoff, Sebastian; Energy Informatics; 2023
Demo Abstract: IT Platform for Provision of Ancillary Services from Distributed Energy Resources
Payam Teimourzadeh Baboli, Amin Raeiszadeh, Michael Brand, and Sebastian Lehnhoff; DACH+ Conference on Energy Informatics, Vienna, Austria; 2023
Impact of ICT Latency, Data Loss and Data Corruption on Active Distribution Network Control
Klaes, Marcel and Zwartscholten, Jannik and Narayan, Anand and Lehnhoff, Sebastian and Rehtanz, Christian; IEEE Access; 2023
Poster Abstract: Algorithms for Condition Monitoring of Complex Power Electronic Systems in Photovoltaics
Loeffler, Dominik; Abstracts of the 12th DACH+ Conference on Energy Informatics 2023; October / 2023
