At the beginning of October 2019, the "DC-Industrie2" research project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics with around 13 million euros, was launched to investigate the potential of direct current technology for industrial production facilities. With 35 industrial partners, five research institutes and the ZVEI, DC-Industrie2 is one of the largest collaborative research projects in Germany.
By the end of 2022, the DC grid concept will be expanded into an intelligent DC supply system that is suitable for supplying a production hall or large-scale process plant with energy at low cost.
After more than a century of dominance of alternating current technology in energy transmission, the industry must now adapt to the new boundary conditions of a decentralized energy supply based on renewable energies. This is also the opinion of Prof. Alexander Sauer, head of the EEP and the corresponding research area at Fraunhofer IPA.
As part of the predecessor project, a comprehensive system concept was developed and tested on model systems between 2016 and 2019. It is now to be expanded in the follow-up project for larger systems up to factory halls, with the aim of a secure, robust, highly available and grid-supporting decentralized supply. This will also significantly reduce the cost of electricity.
www.dc-industrie.de
