Mission: The future

Iden­ti­fy­ing the tech­nol­o­gy trends of tomor­row ear­ly and active­ly shap­ing them is Reinhausen’s goal. For this pur­pose, Rein­hausen is cur­rent­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in these sev­en fund­ed future projects.

Sensors for all


How is the dis­tri­b­u­tion trans­former around the cor­ner doing? The ener­gy provider can­not say exact­ly; after all, there are a hun­dred more in the local grid! But wouldn’t it be use­ful to know more about this equip­ment in the medi­um-volt­age and low-volt­age grids, espe­cial­ly if the grid require­ments increase in the future? Mon­i­tor­ing with intel­li­gent sen­sors, like in high-volt­age and extra-high-volt­age grids, is just too expen­sive.

GOAL

The MAKSIM project wants to change that. It is inves­ti­gat­ing how cost-effec­tive sen­sors based on MEMS (micro-electro­mechan­i­cal sys­tems) from oth­er areas can be used to enable cost-effec­tive, mass-capa­ble sys­tems for dig­i­tal­iz­ing the asset man­age­ment of dis­tri­b­u­tion grids.

PERIOD

09/2018 — 08/2021

PARTNERS

MR, zusam­men mit RWTH Aachen, Fraun­hofer FIT, Bosch und weit­eren Part­nern

FUNDING INSTITUTION

The Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy (BMWi)

MORE INFO

Fraun­hofer FIT

Decoupled local grids


Worst-case sce­nario: A black­out all across Ger­many! But does the light real­ly have to go out every­where? Intel­li­gent cou­pling between the upstream pow­er grid and the local grid of a com­mu­ni­ty might enable a con­tin­ued sup­ply of pow­er local­ly. It does not always have to be an emer­gency, though. If more and more new sources are added, cou­pling could also sta­bi­lize the grids by elim­i­nat­ing volt­age imbal­ances. This can also serve the role of an accu­mu­la­tor by absorb­ing ener­gy peaks and out­putting them again lat­er.

GOAL

The FlexNet-Eko project is research­ing exact­ly this type of grid cou­pling. FlexNet-Eko (“Flex­i­bil­isierung des Net­z­be­triebs durch entkop­pelte Ort­snet­ze”) means mak­ing grid oper­a­tion more flex­i­ble using decou­pled local grids. This should reduce over­loads in the pow­er grid, help­ing com­mu­ni­ties become more inde­pen­dent from it.

PERIOD

02/2019 — 01/2022

PARTNERS

MR, togeth­er with MITNETZ STROM, TU Dres­den, Mit­twei­da Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences

FUNDING INSTITUTION

The Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy (BMWi)

MORE INFO

über das Pro­jekt FlexNet-Eko

No chance for Hackers


On the after­noon of 23 Decem­ber 2015, there was a pow­er out­age for sev­er­al hours in the Ukraine. 700,000 homes were affect­ed. It was caused by a hack­er attack. This exam­ple shows that ener­gy grids are crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and must be spe­cial­ly pro­tect­ed. And defense against cyber attacks is becom­ing increas­ing­ly urgent giv­en the grow­ing demand for net­worked com­mu­ni­ca­tion and oper­at­ing equip­ment.

GOAL

The research project hopes to devel­op an “Ener­gy Safe­ty and Secure Mod­ule” (ES3M) for secure com­mu­ni­ca­tion in ener­gy trans­mis­sion between the infra­struc­ture and con­trol cen­ter, using exper­tise from cryp­tog­ra­phy.

PERIOD

10/2018 — 09/2021

PARTNERS

MR, togeth­er with OTH Regens­burg, EDV Jost, GAI Net­con­sult and Ampri­on

FUNDING INSTITUTION

The Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy (BMWi)

MORE INFO

Fach­hochschule Regens­burg

The grid of the future

The fact is that the ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion is impos­si­ble if ener­gy grids are left as they are. For the sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty to remain reli­able and afford­able into the future, we need new solu­tions to inte­grate many decen­tral­ized sources. Because elec­tric­i­ty must con­tin­ue to come reli­ably from the wall sock­et in the future.

GOAL

The Kopernikus project ENSURE (new ENer­gy grid Struc­tURes for the Ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion) is devel­op­ing an inno­v­a­tive pow­er grid of the future. Here, Rein­hausen is han­dling the design and devel­op­ment of new elec­tron­ic pow­er equip­ment as well as the use of exist­ing equip­ment in the grid to enable high­er uti­liza­tion. As part of the project, Rein­hausen is equip­ping old trans­form­ers in the Etzen­richt sub­sta­tion of Ten­neT GmbH with ETOS ® and sen­sors, ensur­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty by opti­mis­ing the ser­vice life of impor­tant equip­ment.

PERIOD

2019 — 2022

PARTNERS

MR, togeth­er with RWTH Aachen, Karl­sruhe Insti­tute of  Tech­nol­o­gy, Siemens AG, Schleswig-Hol­stein Netz AG and oth­ers.

FUNDING INSTITUTION

The Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research (BMBF)

MORE INFO

Kopernikus-Project ENSURE

DC to AC Current


Run­ning even more elec­tric­i­ty through exist­ing lines? Even in the medi­um-volt­age grid, DC trans­mis­sion can con­tribute to safer grid oper­a­tion and thus to solv­ing the chal­lenges of the ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion.

GOAL

AC2DC? No, it’s not a band—it is the name for the research project inves­ti­gat­ing the options for con­vert­ing exist­ing AC cable sec­tions into DC con­nec­tions. In the project, new tech­nol­o­gy is used and an inno­v­a­tive, future-proof con­cept for man­ag­ing elec­tri­cal grids is also exam­ined. This should allow an increase in trans­mis­sion pow­er in the dis­tri­b­u­tion grid.

PERIOD

04/2020 — 03/2022

PARTNERS

MR togeth­er with TU Dres­den

FUNDING INSTITUTION

The Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy (BMWi)

MORE INFO

TU Dres­den

Attractive Transmission Towers


Would you like to have a trans­mis­sion tow­er of up to 60 meters in height right out­side your front door? The answer, in most cas­es, is
usu­al­ly “No”. But in order to make the ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion hap­pen, more
and more routes are nec­es­sary to trans­port elec­tric­i­ty to pop­u­lat­ed
areas. What can be done?

GOAL

The Euro­pean Com­pos­ite Pow­er Pylon project is look­ing for alter­na­tive tow­er designs that blend incon­spic­u­ous­ly into the land­scape. The goal is for the new high-volt­age pylon to be envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, cost-effec­tive, and, from a tech­ni­cal per­spec­tive, supe­ri­or to con­ven­tion­al
trans­mis­sion tow­ers. The sup­port arms are made of sil­i­cone-shield­ed
hol­low com­pos­ite insu­la­tors which bear the weight of the trans­mis­sion
lines and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly take on the role of elec­tri­cal iso­la­tion.

PERIOD

04/2019 — 03/2021

PARTNERS

MR, togeth­er with Bystrup SME, Val­mont SM A/S, Nex­ans, RPC with RFR, Der­vaux SA

FUNDED BY

The Euro­pean Union

MORE INFO

Pro­jekt Com­pos­ite Pylon

Recharge faster


Where am I sup­posed to charge? How long will it take? Those are the ques­tions peo­ple always ask when they are think­ing about buy­ing an elec­tric car. If we are all sup­posed to be dri­ving elec­tric cars in the future, then we des­per­ate­ly need charg­ing sta­tions where the “refu­el­ing” process does not take much longer than for a tra­di­tion­al com­bus­tion engine.

GOAL

Where am I sup­posed to charge? How long will it take? Those are the ques­tions peo­ple always ask when they are think­ing about buy­ing an elec­tric car. If we are all sup­posed to be dri­ving elec­tric cars in the future, then we des­per­ate­ly need charg­ing sta­tions where the “refu­el­ing” process does not take much longer than for a tra­di­tion­al com­bus­tion engine.

PERIOD

10/2019 — 09/2022

PARTNERS

MR, togeth­er with Fraun­hofer IISB and chargeIT mobil­i­ty

FUNDING INSTITUTION

The Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy (BMWi)

MORE INFO

Rein­hausen

YOUR CONTACT

Would you like to learn more about the fund­ed projects?

Katha­ri­na Völk­er, Project Man­ag­er Tech­nol­o­gy & Trends, would be hap­py to help:
  K.Voelker@reinhausen.com

Share with your network!

Never miss an issue again!

Click here to subscribe for free.