Together with other Fraunhofer Institutes, the Fraunhofer Institute for Casting, Composite and Processing Technology IGCV has developed innovative concepts to support the power supply system.
The concepts are designed to compensate for fluctuations in renewable energies by adapting industrial electricity consumption. SynErgie is one of four projects in the Kopernikus Projects for the Energy Transition research initiative. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funded the first phase of the projects between 2016 and 2019 with a total of 120 million euros. 30 million was allocated to SynErgie. The second three-year phase is currently underway with similar funding, and the ministry has promised a third phase.
The basic idea behind SynErgie is to specifically adapt the energy requirements of industry to current electricity production. For example, production steps with high electricity requirements are scheduled at times when there is a lot of wind and sun. When wind and photovoltaic power plants are weak, preference is given to plants with low electricity consumption. In individual cases, energy-intensive machines can also be throttled back temporarily. The production targets are met at all times despite the flexibly adjusted energy consumption.
The SynErgie project was able to prove that this is actually possible and ultimately even results in significant savings inCO2 emissions during the first funding phase from 2016 to 2019.
