For the energy transition to succeed, it is not enough to simply convert as much of the electricity generation capacity as possible to renewables. It is also necessary to decarbonize the transportation and heating sectors. Once a sufficiently large portion of electricity generation has been converted to renewables, this can best be achieved through the electrification of transportation and heating.

With this increasingly rapid shift in energy flows from fuel and heating networks to the electric grid, challenges are growing—especially for distribution system operators—because the new consumers are primarily connected at the low-voltage level.
Currently, low-voltage grids are being operated “blind”—without real-time measurement data from the grid, the only response to these new challenges is a resource- and cost-intensive expansion of the distribution grids “down to the last kWh.”

Power Plus Communications AG aims to develop and test an alternative to this approach as part of the CACTUS project—in the form of a solution for real-time observability in the low-voltage grid, which will serve as the foundation for other applications (forecasting, control, etc.) within the overall project.

The specific goals of the PPC are as follows:

• Prototype development of a real-time measurement system for the low-voltage grid
• Integration of newly collected grid status data into appropriate backend systems
• System integration at the device level for laboratory and field testing