open_plan: Bottom-up energy transition

The open_plan project aims to develop a cross-sectoral, open planning tool.

This planning tool is intended to be used for the optimised planning of energy cells for the (partial) supply of the electricity and heat requirements of neighbourhoods, industrial yards and industry in Germany and beyond. As active subsystems, energy cells can facilitate the integration of renewable energy and considerably reduce network expansion, since they can be planned and controlled among each other. The tool will close the gap to other inadequate software solutions through the functionality of multi-objective optimization, modifiability, detailed documentation, and an easy to use interface design. A merging of existing approaches as well as an intensive validation phase are planned.

open-science approach to compliance with scientific standards

The open_plan project will follow the promising open-science approach already implemented by RLI in many projects.This means that all data, methods and program code will be made available under a suitable open license. This is intended to comply with scientific standards, because only results generated with open and citable tools and data can be reproduced and reproduced in the field of software-based research.

open_plan: Enhancement of existing RLI modeling tools, the research network, and new, application-oriented research questions

The aim of the RLI is to publish the results in specialist publications and conference papers, thus promoting scientific exchange and expanding the network of stakeholders. Furthermore, open_plan will complement and improve the planning tools already available at RLI to answer concrete research questions in further projects regarding the decentralization of energy system transformation and the cellular approach. Close cooperation within the consortium and with a wide range of stakeholders and users* will expand the research network, opening up a broad field of new, significant and explicitly application-oriented research questions. The open_plan project complements other previous open-science research projects of RLI, such as (OpenEnergyPlatfrom), (feed-in time series on OpenEnergyPlatform) and enables the comparison, validation and improvement of energy system modelling.

The open_plan project is funded within the framework of the “Technology-oriented systems analysis” funding area of the BMWi’s 7th Energy Research Programme “Innovation for the energy transition”.

Project period: January 2020 – July 2023

• Project management and communication
• Identification of potential use cases of the planning tool
• Modelling of the electricity and heat system
• Calculation of energy cells and energy use scenarios.