Overview
The project addresses two major topics in the “Smart City Switzerland” concept:
- Smart Grids and Supply Technologies
- Smart Buildings
Starting today, power grids need to be able to store, distribute and exchange energy more efficiently “real time” in order to balance the energy network. It is a paradigm shift away from the concept of pumped-storage hydro power plants, which consume spare energy during low demand and produce additional energy during peak times to a concept of intelligent energy grid balance in order to avoid peaks at all, starting from countries, regions, cities down to buildings and individual energy consumers in the households (“virtual power station”). The decentralization of energy production including discontinuous energy sources like wind and solar energy plus the fact that households using solar energy panels have become consumers and producers of energy at the same time, requires communication technologies, knowledge and information management on a large scale.
Business Intelligence plays a key role for the management of huge amounts of data and for an active control of the energy distribution system using latest developments in the areas of in-memory computing for realtime BI, mobile BI for data transmission, big data for intelligent power balance and predictive analytics.
Key subprojects include
- development of advanced BI-solutions for the realization of the “virtual power station” for the households and customers of an energy provider;
- extension to regional or countrywide grid balance concepts;
- development of cost saving models, definition of ROIs and KPIs for providers and consumers;
- profitability analysis for future ”power brokers” or service providers in deregulated energy markets;
- analysis of the motivation of households to participate in such concepts;
- data security and privacy aspects;
- extension of the “virtual power station” concept to industry…
