Long-Term Solutions for The Transition of Energy System Needed

Energy supply systems have a long lifetime (30 … 40 … 50+ years). Electric energy is flowing trough generators, wires, transformer, switchgears, motors, and other loads; gas and heat is flowing through tubes … The energy is usually flowing top-down today. In the future we will have to manage energy flow top-down, bottom-up, back and forth, converted between …

The transition of the energy system as planned today, will take decades to happen. According to Eberhard Umbach, the president of the KIT (Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie) it would be a great success, if we could get started within the next 10 years (Read in the News [German]).

“Der Präsident des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT) hat Zweifel am Gelingen der Energiewende und dem Ausbau der Windenergie im Südwesten. "Das größte Problem ist, dass wir künftig dezentrale Netze brauchen, die separat geregelt werden und miteinander verknüpft sind", sagte Eberhard Umbach der "Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung" (Montag).

Ein Aspekt werde von den Politikern derzeit weitgehend ignoriert, sagte Umbach: "Zur Steuerung der dezentralen Netze fehlt uns heute die entsprechende Informationstechnologie einschließlich entsprechender Sicherheitsmaßnahmen, da reicht es nicht, ein paar neue Programme zu schreiben." Wenn innerhalb der nächsten zehn Jahre erste Schritte gelängen, so Umbach, dann "wären wir sehr gut".

That means for the information and information exchange infrastructure that it has to stay (standardized one way or the other) for some 30 … 50 years. It is unlikely to replace a comprehensive infrastructure, that is required for the future hybrid energy system, every 10 years or so. In the manufacturing domain (car production, …) it is likely that a factory will be upgraded to a new “standard” every 7 to 10 years.

So, we have some years left to do large scale deployments of the basic information and information exchange infrastructure for the hybrid energy system of the future.

The basic definitions that can be used today, in 10 or even in 30 years are the IEC 61968/70 (CIM) and IEC 61850. The crucial parts of these standard series are independent of implementation technologies: models of a generators, measurements of the electrical 3-phase system or power quality information are semantic models that could be used forever. A “phase A current” is a “phase A current” today and in 40 years.

There is one issue here: How could I figure out which models exist? Good question!

Click HERE for the list of 280+ Logical nodes (2010).