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Third Party Projects

InFlAmE


Development of Innovative Technologies and Tools for Flexibility Assessment and Enhancement of Future Power Systems

In electrical power systems, operational flexibility is crucial for the balancing of long- and shortterm disparities between load and non-dispatchable generation. This flexibility thus plays a critical role in the security and reliability of modern smart power systems and affects their overall costs and efficiency. Due to the increasing share of fluctuating power generation from renewable resources, this demand for flexibility is going to drastically increase in the oncoming years. At the same time, the dismantling of conventional power plants leads to a shortfall of today’s main flexibility providers, causing a need for new sources of operational flexibility.

Conventionally, this flexibility gap is closed by installing cost-intensive and regressive technologies such as fossil power plants or pumped storage system. In order to avoid these large-scale investments, other ways of using the power system’s inherent flexibility have been developed. Many of them work with present technical units and use an existing technical degree of freedom. These approaches are called demand-side or supply-side management. Both forms include the operation of distributed technical units in accordance with the requirements of the respective electrical power system. Due to the distributed character of the aggregates involved (e.g. electric vehicles, heat pumps, CHP) these approaches are called distributed flexibility. This form of flexibility has a high potential with regard to its technical properties and cost efficiency, but requires a high effort in modeling and simulation due to its heterogeneous technical components.

In order to tackle this conflict, the applicants strive to develop a unified modelling approach for distributed flexibility. While recent approaches fail at common understanding of flexibility in the different layers of the power system, the applicants will develop a modelling framework that allows the detailed quantification of flexibility potentials with a distribution-oriented perspective as well as on a system-wide view. In this approach, detailed technical optimisation models for the dispatch of distributed flexibility are implemented and enhanced by means of an extensive stochastic simulation in a first step. The systematic behaviour of this model is in a second step analysed, learned and finally reproduced by methods of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The resulting multilevel model of distributed flexibility subsequently allows a much more accurate quantification of the distributed flexibility together and novel analyses of the cross-impact on distribution and transmission systems.

In practice, such modelling approaches will be crucial for an efficient planning of European and Russian transmission and distribution grids. The improved quantification of distributed flexibility will allow a more secure and stable grid operation. Additionally, the multilevel consideration of distributed flexibility is important for minimising the overall grid expansion demand and efficient planning of power plant capacity and energy markets.

Project duration: 02/2020 - 01/2023

Project Partners

Institut für Energiesysteme, Energieeffizienz und Energiewirtschaft (ie3), TU Dort­mund Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Rehtanz | Russian Academy of Sciences
Melentiev Energy Systems Institute of Siberian Branch, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Nikolai Voropai

Sponsors

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Location & approach

The campus of TU Dort­mund University is located close to interstate junction Dort­mund West, where the Sauerlandlinie A 45 (Frankfurt-Dort­mund) crosses the Ruhrschnellweg B 1 / A 40. The best interstate exit to take from A 45 is "Dort­mund-Eichlinghofen" (closer to Campus Süd), and from B 1 / A 40 "Dort­mund-Dorstfeld" (closer to Campus Nord). Signs for the uni­ver­si­ty are located at both exits. Also, there is a new exit before you pass over the B 1-bridge leading into Dort­mund.

To get from Campus Nord to Campus Süd by car, there is the connection via Vogelpothsweg/Baroper Straße. We recommend you leave your car on one of the parking lots at Campus Nord and use the H-Bahn (suspended monorail system), which conveniently connects the two campuses.

TU Dort­mund University has its own train station ("Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät"). From there, suburban trains (S-Bahn) leave for Dort­mund main station ("Dort­mund Hauptbahnhof") and Düsseldorf main station via the "Düsseldorf Airport Train Station" (take S-Bahn number 1, which leaves every 20 or 30 minutes). The uni­ver­si­ty is easily reached from Bochum, Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr and Duisburg.

You can also take the bus or subway train from Dort­mund city to the uni­ver­si­ty: From Dort­mund main station, you can take any train bound for the Station "Stadtgarten", usually lines U41, U45, U 47 and U49. At "Stadtgarten" you switch trains and get on line U42 towards "Hombruch". Look out for the Station "An der Palmweide". From the bus stop just across the road, busses bound for TU Dort­mund University leave every ten minutes (445, 447 and 462). Another option is to take the subway routes U41, U45, U47 and U49 from Dort­mund main station to the stop "Dort­mund Kampstraße". From there, take U43 or U44 to the stop "Dort­mund Wittener Straße". Switch to bus line 447 and get off at "Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät S".

The AirportExpress is a fast and convenient means of transport from Dort­mund Airport (DTM) to Dort­mund Central Station, taking you there in little more than 20 minutes. From Dort­mund Central Station, you can continue to the uni­ver­si­ty campus by interurban railway (S-Bahn). A larger range of in­ter­na­tio­nal flight connections is offered at Düsseldorf Airport (DUS), which is about 60 kilometres away and can be directly reached by S-Bahn from the uni­ver­si­ty station.

The H-Bahn is one of the hallmarks of TU Dort­mund University. There are two stations on Campus Nord. One ("Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät S") is directly located at the suburban train stop, which connects the uni­ver­si­ty directly with the city of Dort­mund and the rest of the Ruhr Area. Also from this station, there are connections to the "Technologiepark" and (via Campus Süd) Eichlinghofen. The other station is located at the dining hall at Campus Nord and offers a direct connection to Campus Süd every five minutes.

The facilities of TU Dort­mund University are spread over two campuses, the larger Campus North and the smaller Campus South. Additionally, some areas of the uni­ver­si­ty are located in the adjacent "Technologiepark".

Site Map of TU Dort­mund University (Second Page in English)