With the Chair of Power Electronics at FAU and over 30 well-known partners from the electrical trade, industry and renowned associations and clusters, the project “Digital Planning and Simulation of Hybrid AC/DC Energy Networks in Automated Production Facilities” (DC|hyPASim) will start on 1 March 2022. The project aims to identify and harness untapped energy saving potential in the manufacturing industry. In the course of this, technical measures to control the natural fluctuation of renewable energy sources will be evaluated in the context of future energy supply. Overall, investment costs will be reduced (by eliminating a large number of power supply units and converters), energy consumption will be lowered (by reducing power conversion processes), companies’ ability to innovate will be strengthened (by means of new products) and a path to CO2-neutral production will be shown. To achieve this goal, DC grids or hybrid structures consisting of DC and AC grids are used, with which, for example, regenerative energy or recuperation energy from electric drives can be exchanged or stored efficiently and intelligently.

Over a period of three years, digital images to be developed will be used to test how direct current branches can be linked to industrial grids in a time- and cost-efficient manner. The usable result will be a digital planning landscape and a prototype implementation of the concept. The feasibility of the new supply concept is presented by a demonstrator system for decentralised DC grid branches with generators, storage units and consumers, which is being developed and set up alongside the project with the generous provision of materials, prototypes and services from the motivated industrial partners.

Project contents at a glance:

• Dimensioning of hybrid AC/DC energy grids with generators, storage and consumers using a dedicated DC demonstrator
• Planning landscape with digital twin
• Linking the electrical system behaviour (energy level) with the digital models of the production plants (process level)
• Holistic protection and control concept for hybrid grid architectures
• Software-based economic analysis of such networks

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