Multi-Resilience, Resilience in ICT-based Multimodal Energy Distribution Systems

Energy distribution systems are increasingly based on the interconnection between different infrastructures (electricity, gas, heat, ICT), transforming them into smart multimodal energy distribution systems (SMEDSs). To realize the energy system transformation towards a highly efficient and renewable energy based system, the coupling of energy sectors (electricity, heat, and mobility) is one of the major facilitators. The distribution system will be faced with significant growth in the number of distributed generators, storages and loads (e.g., heat pumps, electrical vehicles, power to gas units) over the following years and decades. Monitoring and control of a large number of these distributed energy units will increasingly rely on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in accordance to the trend of digitalization. This development inherently fosters the interdependence between power, gas, heat, and ICT infrastructures in SMEDSs.Challenges to plan and operate a resilient energy infrastructure are inherently present due to naturally limited quality of components. The rising complexity in smart infrastructures as well as their mutual interconnections foster additional challenges to arise both on intra- and inter-system level. The power system is continuously designed to operate more at the edge of acceptable loading and voltage limits, relying on ICT infrastructure for supervision and control under significantly more volatile power flow situations. ICT-sided attacks on smart infrastructures are a reality. Real examples show that the resilience of the energy infrastructure is becoming a major challenge in the future. Ongoing research is mainly in the area of natural disasters or cyber-attacks impacting single infrastructures. An open research question is how resilience in multiple interconnected infrastructures and their mutual interdependencies can be modeled and how overall resilience can be enhanced. This open area is of outmost importance for critical infrastructures and will be addressed in this project proposal.The goal of Multi-Resilience is to evaluate and increase the mutual resilience of SMEDSs coupled through interconnectors. On the one hand, new methods will be developed to model and evaluate resilience of SMEDSs. On the other hand novel resilience-enhancing concepts for the operation of an interconnected infrastructure are investigated to protect against and mitigate intra- and inter-system challenges. For this, the project can rely on work that has already been started for each of the infrastructures independently and expand on this to incorporate the mutual influences of the interconnected systems.

Principal Investigators:

Prof. Dr. Martin Braun
Prof. Dr. Hermann de Meer