SynErgie III – Synchronized and energy-adaptive production technology for adapting industrial processes to a fluctuating energy supply

The Kopernikus project SynErgie and its approximately 70 partners have set themselves the goal of creating all the technical prerequisites within ten years to synchronize the energy requirements of German industry with the fluctuating energy supply. In this way, SynErgie will contribute to the cost-effective implementation of an energy transition based on renewable energies and enable Germany to become an international leader in flexible industrial processes and technologies. After the successful completion of the first two funding phases (SynErgie I and SynErgie II), SynErgie III focuses on the increased transfer of the developed solutions to industry.

Motivation

The future energy supply system in Germany faces the challenge of ensuring an affordable and stable power supply despite fluctuating power generation based on renewable energies. This requires a fundamental and structural change in the electricity market and industrial energy procurement to synchronize volatile supply and demand. Demand-side management (DSM), the medium- and short-term flexibilization of electricity demand, offers an opportunity to implement this change in a cost-effective and socially responsible manner. Since the industry is responsible for a large part of the German energy demand, the corresponding production processes have considerable flexibility levers, which are to be investigated within the framework of the SynErgie III project.

Objective

SynErgie III expands the energy efficiency measures of German industry to include the requirements of energy demand flexibility, so that the energy needs of production processes can be synchronized with the supply of renewable energies in the future. This will lead to improved energy procurement conditions for companies and open up additional system-relevant and cost-effective flexibility capacities for the electricity system. Within the framework of SynErgy III, an interdisciplinary consortium of representative industrial companies, renowned research institutions and civil society organizations will identify all necessary levers for energy flexibility. The project content is divided into four thematic strands: Flexibility Technology Development (I), Flexibility Implementation (II), Flexibility Automation (III) and Flexibility Marketing (IV). The work of the Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management (iwb) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) is assigned to strands II, III and IV.

Strand II: Flexibility Implementation

The goal of the Flexibility Implementation strand is to implement technical and organizational measures for energy flexibility in innovative pilot projects in relevant sectors of German industry. This requires a close exchange with the other project strands. Following the work of the first two funding phases, the implementation projects of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) also play an important role.

Strand III: Flexibility Automation

The overall objective of the Flexibility Automation work package is to validate the enterprise platform and the market-based services developed in the previous project phases in practice and to integrate the energy synchronization platform and the energy flexibility data model developed in SynErgie into standardization in order to ensure transferability and automation. Further development of the market platform is not planned, as the market services are to be used directly in the various application scenarios.

Strand IV: Flexibility Marketing

The aim of the Flexibility Marketing strand is to create all economic opportunities in accordance with legal and social aspects in order to make the best possible use of the energy flexibility of the industry for the success of the energy transition. To this end, this strand deals with the analysis of potentials, the further development of regulation, the design of a future electricity market and - in close cooperation with the other strands - the further development of the Augsburg Energy Flexibility Model Region.

Information Material

• For more information, visit the SynErgie Website.
• Experience energy flexibility for yourself by playing the SynErGame.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the financial support and the Project Management Agency Jülich for the excellent support of the Kopernikus project SynErgie III.