Professor Gerd Heilscher provides TRANSFER magazine with an overview of key developments in the field of renewable energy systems and talks about the importance of smart grids during the current energy transition. He also discusses sustainable energy provision and offers a prediction for future energy scenarios.
Professor Heilscher, you have decades of experience in the planning and analysis of renewable energy systems. Looking back, what would you describe as the key turning points in this area?
The biggest success has to be cost reduction, not just in the way wind energy is used but also in photovoltaics. Local solar power – on the roof of your house in Germany and many parts of the European Union – is now cheaper than the electricity supplied by the energy companies. A key driver behind this development was the expansion in feed-in legislation with feed-in tariff degression. At the same time, manufacturers and service providers have safeguarded the high standards of renewable energy systems, because poor quality and downtime was having an impact on the feedin tariff system with a direct effect on prof-itability.
You were honored with a science award by the City of Ulm in 2014 for your research into smart electric-ity grids for the energy transition. How important are smart grids for the environment, as well as consumers?
Switching our energy provision to local renewable energy systems will bring about sweeping changes in the supply structure, as well as the companies and business models that are linked to it. The point is that this isn’t an “energy transition” at the moment, we’re experiencing a “transformation in the energy system.” Liberalization of energy provision trans-formed energy users into consumers. At the same time, a transition to different energy provision is transforming those consumers into providers. These two terms can effectively be combined to describe a new group of “prosumers.” All parties previously or even only recently involved in energy provision will have to get accustomed to the new structure of energy flows and the impact this will have on the energy market.
Smart grids are an important constituent of this trans-formation. Smart grids initially mean more information on the energy flows in the local supply structure. At the same time, this information lays a foundation for new services.
Sustainable energy provision is important, but somehow it seems it’s not – or not yet – working properly. Why do you think that is?
The way I see it, sustainable energy provision clearly is actually working properly. But at the same time, there are losers in this energy system transformation. The established energy providers were extremely late to pick up on the change going on and it’s not clear yet how those companies will cope with reconfiguring to local provision.
Even the Federal Ministry of the Environment was caught out by the switch to renewable energy provision. Putting a ceiling on electricity prices and taxing solar energy was a bit like pulling the handbrake to give the energy providers a breather so they could cope with the change.
Just a small amount of solar energy in the market was enough to wreak havoc with the business model of new power stations. Although it may have been a surprise for most market players, any fifth semester student could easily figure it out. The green and white paper of the Federal Ministry of Economics on restructuring the energy market has now started the discussion process.
However, for renewable energy provision to keep working as the system is rolled out, more changes are needed. Even holding electricity prices down won’t be enough to stop this development. But the crucial question is who will be the future key players in the energy market. In the same way that Industry 4.0 is shaping competition between Google and co. and manufacturing companies in Germany, there’s already a contest underway between IT newcomers and the conventional energy industry.
Your experts at the Steinbeis Transfer Center look at the energy in-dustry and energy management, as well as smart grids and local energy systems. What sort of areas of industry do your clients approach you from and what problems do they ask you about?
We’re working with Ulm University of Applied Sciences on smart grid topics. Our smart grids team mainly focuses on public utilities companies and is sup-porting the grid operators, meter service providers, and energy providers with the transition process. To do this, we’re looking particularly closely at concrete scenarios with fully expanded local provision. We’re also examining the impacts on the electricity grid and energy flows. The interesting issues at the moment are how to link up electricity, heating, and gas grids, as well as how to use smart meters and communicate directly with power inverters.
What do you think we should expect to happen in the medium term with respect to future energy scenarios?
I grew up with gray telephones with a rotary dial on the front. Today I use a telephone that hasn’t even got a wire and making a call is just one of many possible functions. For me, the initial building blocks are there as a starting point for exciting new energy scenarios, with things like flat rates for energy use, adaptable electricity and heating demand depending on the energy sup-ply, the advent of storage systems, plus lots of other new products and services.
Professor Gerd Heilscher is director of the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Local Renewable Energy Systems at Ulm University of Applied Sciences. Work at the Steinbeis Enterprises focuses on the areas of photovoltaics, the energy industry, energy data management, smart grids, smart metering, smart homes, the grid integration of local energy systems and energy meteorology.
Professor Gerd Heilscher
Steinbeis Transfer Center Local Renewable Energy Systems (Ulm)
SU1513@stw.de