Funded by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

Project executing organization: Forschungszentrum Jülich

Duration: 1.03.2021 – 29.02.2024

Motivation: Information is the central driver of digitalization and thus represents a new currency in today's world. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to analyze the value and cost of information as well as its use, taking into account personal security thinking in the context of the energy transition.

Idea: Transferred to the field of power supply as critical infrastructure (CRITIS), this can mean that information in general can be a key driver for progress and further development as well as generation of technical and economic operational concepts. This raises the prospect of potential optimization of network operation, network planning and even the overall system. To this end, the project is divided into the three innovation strands:

• Creation of an integrative validation platform.

This will act as a link and, while maintaining high availability and cybersecurity, will ensure access to heterogeneous data sources from network operations, enable the integration of third-party software, and thus allow users to make calculations and decisions based on real data from network operations

• Application development and profitability assessment

Here, the specific value for the collected information for different use cases and stakeholders is to be determined. In addition to the monetary evaluation and a cost-benefit analysis, recommendations for future data collection will be derived.

• Regulatory framework for the acceptance of third-party use of personal data

The focus here is on investigating the psychology of users of energy supply systems. The disclosure of electricity-related usage data is to be balanced between the aspects of privacy and the environmental attitude of the users. Thus, a valid evaluation between required usage flexibility as well as willingness to do so shall be enabled.

General objectives:

• Make network operation secure & sustainable
• Generation of innovative information exchange and usage concepts
• Estimation of new business models
• Consideration of acceptance for data provision as a key factor of digitalization
• Exploration of the value and cost of information in the power grid

Goals BTU:

• Elaboration of a methodology for the valuation of information
• Develop a holistic optimization model to quantify the value of information for managing distribution networks under different scenarios/situations

Executing agencies:

Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg
Department of Energy Economics 
Prof. Dr. Felix Müsgens

Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (OVGU)
Chair of Electrical Networks and Renewable Energy
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Wolter

Chair of Personality and Social Psychology
Prof. Dr. Florian G. Kaiser

OFFIS e.V.

PSI Software AG

SWW Wunsiedel GmbH

SWH Stadtwerke Haßfurt GmbH

Es-geht! Energiesysteme GmbH