Project ARCHE

Optimizing the energy mix and use of energy storage facilities in building complexes with a decentralized energy system requires an integrated management concept. A particular challenge in this regard is guaranteeing security of supply in spite of the different energy sources and energy conversion methods used. Such energy systems and building control systems are already technically feasible, but involve high development and commissioning costs. In response to this problem, ARCHE (“Architectures and design methodology for self-optimizing control processes in distributed energy systems”) will significantly reduce development costs, making a key contribution to the popularization of environmentally-friendly systems that use a high proportion of renewable zero-carbon or carbon-neutral energy.

The approach

The initiative will lead to the creation of the ARCHE platform, which will substantially simplify the development, testing, and commissioning of management solutions for distributed energy systems, as well their continuous monitoring.  To this end, the initiative will focus on designing self-optimizing energy management systems that allow operators to: 

• guarantee security of supply and an optimal energy mix for consumers,
• optimize the management of integrated energy storage facilities, and
• select components of the energy system according to user and location criteria such as cost, availability, energy source, etc.

The project will use software solutions, methods, and procedures to automate and simplify the industry’s conventional manual approach to designing complex energy management systems. The project outcome will be a prototype implementation of the ARCHE platform. Using four representative demonstrators, the design and application of the self-optimizing controllers will be demonstrated both virtually and in real buildings, exemplifying the energy savings and the straightforward and practical commissioning process enabled by the platform. The project results will be available for subsequent use in the form of a software library.

Project status: completed

The project was supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.