Renewable Management and Real-Time Control Platform (ReMaP)

Switzerland has set the goal to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Many teams have used energy system models to describe feasible pathways and this led to a consensus on many crucial aspects. The most important ones are the electrification of the mobility and heating sector via battery electric vehicles and heat pumps, respectively, and the dominant role of photovoltaics in the future energy mix. The challenges that come with this transformation from a fossil fuel system to an electrical system that relies on volatile generation are obvious. To address these challenges and to understand the implications of the widespread adoption of fluctuating renewable energy sources on the energy system as a whole and especially on the distribution grid is therefore of critical importance.

The “Renewable Management and Real-Time Control Platform” (ReMaP) project contributed to this understanding by developing a flexible, hardware- and software-based research platform for assessing potential energy-system solutions for the neighborhood of the future. This platform allows multi-energy systems on the distribution level to be tested, analyzed, and optimized and thereby encourage collaboration between academia and industry. A distinguishing feature of the platform is that it integrates the existing Energy System Integration platform at the Paul Scherrer Institut and the NEST, move, and ehub platforms at Empa.

The ReMaP project was based on two pillars: the first is the ReMaP platform itself that enables the aforementioned testing of future multi-energy systems – from a pure computer simulation, i.e. the ReSIM software, to a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) approach where some or all elements are represented by real hardware. The second are a total of nine subprojects that focus on specific aspects of the challenges to build and control a future energy system. Most of these subprojects used elements of the ReMaP platform, many enriched the platform, e.g. by supplying novel control approaches in the form of software modules, some performed full HIL experiments involving ESI, Nest and even additional elements, such as a combined heat and power plant at ETH or a biogas plant in Inwil.

All results of the project are documented on external page Aramis.