Fraunhofer Research Institution for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Systems IEGTransformation process for the municipal energy transition – sector-coupled infrastructure and strategies to integrate local actors (TrafoKommunE). The goal is to improve the transfer of research findings concerning the energy transition to municipal environments in practical settings. The project, funded by the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, will run for three years and is expected to be completed in February 2023.
Objectives
Germany has set itself the goal of reducing fossil-based CO2 by 80 to 95% before 2050 relative to the levels of 1990. To achieve this goal, technical and strategic action recommendations are being developed for municipal utility companies and distribution network operators, and measures towards conversion (transformation paths) and coupling of energy infrastructure (gas, electricity, and heat) are being proposed. The analyses will be developed for specific rural and urban areas first, then generalized.
The core of the project is formed by strategy development to improve the transfer of results from research into practice (activation of municipal utility companies). Technological, infrastructural, economic, and social aspects will be assessed and evaluated using energy and network models as scenarios starting from the current state. Strategies for implementing the energy transition in municipal environments will then be derived, which will be realized in subsequent projects. The scenarios will be developed from real data from the cities of Karlsruhe, Kiel, Esslingen, and Göppingen, provided by the energy suppliers Netze BW GmbH and Erdgas Südwest GmbH, then generalized to other rural and urban municipalities. The work of Fraunhofer IEG focuses in particular on the coupled analysis of grid-connected energy sources for electricity, heat, and gas.