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Customer Application

Digitization as the Basis of Sector Coupling

Sector coupling, digitization and customer orientation – these are the focuses of the energy service provider Avacon Natur. They increase the efficiency of the energy systems and district heating systems and provides demand-driven information. Above all, sector coupling – integrated control for heat, electrical and electromobility – requires digital data acquisition.

“Digitization is the glue that holds sector coupling together and makes efficient solutions for neighborhoods and districts possible,” says Andreas Klesse, Board Member of Avacon Natur GmbH. The company is a subsidiary of the regional energy service provider Avacon AG – itself a part of E.ON – and operates CHP plants, heating networks, heating service systems and a wide range of renewable energy systems in Saxony-Anhalt, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse. It currently has 80 employees and continues to grow.

The Energy Transition Will Be Driven by Customers

After the first phase of the energy transition, which mostly took place in the electricity sector and focused on the expansion requirements of renewable energies, the second phase will be driven by customers – and their needs are changing. Customers are increasingly becoming prosumers, who play an active role in the energy system. This shifts the challenge from pure energy supply to integrated solutions for heating, electricity and electromobility.

Innovative energy solutions can be easily and efficiently implemented for new residential and business districts. Such development allows an integrative view of the energy requirements during the planning phase already, which allows the energy supply of a district to be optimized. This notwithstanding, Avacon Natur implements these solutions for both new construction and existing districts.

The challenge is to coordinate the supply of electricity, as well as heat from CHP plants, photovoltaic plants and other heat producers, with customer demand in the district. This requires precise data, which has to be collected and processed digitally. The system distribution boxes from WAGO that Avacon Natur uses for this purpose are ideal for the data acquisition.

Climate-Friendly Energy Solutions

In the Salzwedel metropolitan area, the company is already testing such climate-friendly energy solutions. Avacon Natur operates a complex power generation structure there, with combined heat and power (CHP) plants, photovoltaic systems and power-to-heat plants. A combination of centralized and decentralized heat generation has been implemented successfully. The residents also benefit, since so-called tenant electricity models make cost-optimized power supply possible for them. Furthermore, smaller CHP plants are connected to the Salzwedel district heating grid and efficiently provide electricity and heat in combination with a photovoltaic system. Surplus generated heat is fed into the existing heating network.

Digitizing the Heating Network

Digitization is also advancing in existing systems.. The focus here is on increasing the efficiency of the district heating network. Avacon Natur is currently equipping about 100 energy systems with WAGO system distribution boxes for data acquisition. One of them, in the Bockelsberg district of Lüneburg, supplies heat to Leuphana University and an adjacent residential district, and also cold air to the main auditorium building of the university for the server rooms and air-conditioning the lecture halls. The Avacon local heating network at this site consists of three sub-networks and is 2 miles (3.3 km) long. It includes 55 transmission stations in the residential neighborhood and a central heat transfer point for the university. The downstream network on the campus is the responsibility of Leuphana University.

The sub-networks are operated at different flow temperatures. The CHPs installed there are the heart of the heat generation and are supplied with renewable energy in the form of biogas. Digitization of the heating network should allow them to fully exploit their heat/power coupling potential through even more intelligent operation. Frequently running the motors up and down negatively impacts the service life and efficiency. Digitization can also fix this.