Sustainable energy systems: Decentral generation and storage with sector coupling
The idea of climate neutral power generation and heat supply using renewable energy sources is steadily increasing in importance. With increasing integration of renewable energy sources for power and heat generation, as well as the goal of using the available energy with as few losses as possible, the energy industry is faced with change: instead of a largely centralized energy supply as in previous decades, many modern approaches are based on energy supply with smaller, decentral facilities.
To limit grid expansion costs and reduce transmission losses, energy storage as part of an energy supply system is constantly becoming more important. For operators of e.g. solar, wind, or combined heat and power plants, energy storage is important to compensate for disproportionate rates of grid feed-in remuneration to grid power draw costs. Additionally, multiple wind and solar power plants as well as storage systems can be combined to form virtual power plants to provide balancing energy.
To increase the efficiency factor between primary and usable energy, the energy production, heat production and transportation sectors need to be considered collectively.
