SmartGrids

"Smart grids" refer to electricity, gas and thermal grids that are able to

• cope with steadily growing distributed power generation, e.g. from wind, sun or biogas;
• pass it on to customers efficiently; and
• at the same time meet customer demands for individual energy supplies – in terms of both time and quantity.

This being so, a smart grid is marked above all by a high degree of flexibility, coupled with high supply quality as well as energy and cost efficiency.

Smart grids are the precondition for other innovative services like smart meters, smart homes, e-energy or even virtual power plants. All of these taken together form a crucial module for the energy supply of the future: smart energy.

The differences between today's grids and smart grids are fluid. Germany's energy grids already have many features of smart grids. For any further development of the grids necessary in future, two essential questions will play a role:

1. How will customer demand for energy evolve, and
2. what requirements will result from the integration of increasingly distributed producers based on wind, sun, biomass, biogas?

RWE Deutschland AG is consortium leader in the project "Grids for the power supply of the future" promoted by Germany's federal economics ministry under the economic stimulus package II. In this project, RWE is collaborating with ABB, consentec and Dortmund Technical University. This project is developing smart-grid concepts to analyse local and regional changes in the supply function and work out solutions. In the form of target-grid planning, an energy- and cost-efficient solution will be established and implemented in 2011 for a real grid at RWE Deutschland AG. The project's results are to serve as basis for future planning and operating principles applying to energy grids in Germany and be made available to all grid operators in Germany. With this project, RWE Deutschland AG is trail-blazer and opinion-leader. The project volume amounts to some € 6.5 million.