What will the energy supply of the future look like?

"Digital data will play a paramount role in the energy system of the future," says Veit Hagenmeyer, Professor of Energy Informatics and Director of the Institute for Applied Informatics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The available data volumes serve as the basis for models and simulations of the future grids. Only with the help of this information can forecasts for energy demand, energy generation, and price be made in real time. Without it, the most diverse components of the system can neither be regulated nor controlled. "Digital data is the backbone of a clean future," summarizes Hagenmeyer. As spokesman for the Helmholtz Energy System Design program, in which researchers aim to create the energy system of the future, he is also aware of the major challenge of orchestrating the decentrally obtained information so that energy generation and consumption are balanced at all times. The math is quite simple: If there is a mismatch between the amount of energy available and the consumption demanded, the lights go out.

New batteries from the “palette of the elements”

"Current batteries are highly complex inside," says Helge Stein. "The interface of electrodes and electrolyte–we call this the solid-liquid interphase essentially determines how long the battery lasts, how often and how fast I can charge it, how safe it is." Stein is a tenure-track professor of applied electrochemistry at the Helmholtz Institute in Ulm. This is part of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and was founded in 2011 together with the University of Ulm, the ZSW and the DLR to develop the next generations of electrochemical energy storage systems. The crux of the matter is the complex interaction of the materials used. A few percent more of one material, for example, could make the battery last longer, but perhaps lengthen the charging time. Replacing one material with a previously unused one could perhaps lead to a super battery, or prove to be a failure. But through comprehensive data management, even these supposed failures are used to constantly improve batteries.

"It usually takes 20 to 40 years to bring a new technology to market," he says. "We want to speed that up by a factor of 10." To that end, he and his team have just built a facility of 18 meters in length where small robots and sophisticated artificial intelligence automatically search for the best combinations of materials for new batteries. The " palette of elements" is what he affectionately calls the system for combinatorial synthesis. "Just like painting, the system helps itself from the 60 or so chemical elements provided," says Helge Stein, outlining the process. "From these, it mixes the most diverse combinations of materials and then first produces millimeter-small half cells and later button cells like those you find in the supermarket." These are still a long way from a battery in a car or home storage unit, but they are sufficient to measure the most important properties. "The data from the measurements flows back into the process. The AI uses it and plans the next combination of materials based on it."

Active learning is the name of this artificial intelligence approach, and it takes a lot of tedious lab work away from the researchers. "We now don't have to spend a lot of time making and mixing material powders, but can focus entirely on our creative research, guided by the AI." After all, the creative ideas to make something new will continue to come from the scientists. And they will also provide the framework within which the algorithms will then work as tools. "For the foreseeable future, AI will only look for a creative solution in a narrowly defined area," Helge Stein tells us. "The creative spirit still sits on human shoulders." Digitalization, he says, is key to all the techniques he and his team work with. That's because Big Data and AI thrive on data. In fact, they need prodigious amounts of it. "The energy transition is a global challenge that we can only solve together," says the physical chemist. "That's why we strive for open interfaces. We therefore publish our data live so that other research groups can work with it."

Step by step towards the autonomous energy system

Experts agree that the energy transition cannot work without digitalization. But it would be far too short-sighted to focus solely on the technical aspects of generation and consumption in the energy system of the future. "The economic side also has a major influence and cannot be implemented without digitalization," says Veit Hagenmeyer. "It starts with the major power exchanges where electrical energy is traded." After all, if the price of electricity is to be formed from fluctuating, decentralized supply and demand across all sectors in real time, there is no way around algorithms. "And it goes on to new digital business models that can involve everyone in the energy system." Here, he's thinking of variable electricity tariffs, where people don't commit for a year or more. Instead, smart electricity meters in the home get the price in real time. The home control center then orchestrates all electrical appliances. If the electricity is cheap at the moment, the charging unit for the electric car switches on. If the analysis system also predicts favorable prices for the next hour, the washing machine and dishwasher start up. And all this happens without us noticing much. But slowly, and one step at a time: "With the autonomy of the energy system, it will be like autonomous driving," Veit Hagenmeyer points out. "There are also different stages there, from assistance to partial autonomy to fully autonomous operation. That's what we want to achieve with the energy grid at some point."