In February 2019, the project partners COMback GmbH, IDS GmbH, SWK Stadtwerke Kaiserslautern Versorgungs-AG and the Faculty of Energy Systems and Energy Management at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern began to develop a prototype for a comprehensive solution for controlling and monitoring low-voltage grids, in particular. An automation device is at the heart of this innovation: a so-called local grid controller (LGC) which will reliably detect limit violations and will autonomously control voltage and load flow with the aim of ensuring reliable and safe grid operations. In the event of faults, the local grid controller will intervene to repair the fault.

This comprehensive solution will do without costly additional measurement and communication technology. Instead, the system will derive its data from the existing smart meter communication infrastructure. However, in order to ensure that the grid operates stably, even with reduced measurement parameters and relatively high measurement cycles, the grid partners are seeking to develop a reliable predictive control system. Artificial neural networks (ANN) are to predict the network status on the basis of previous data and, if necessary, to provide reliable substitute measurement values. In order to increase the validity of the power grid state estimates, an additional state corrector is being developed. This will take into account the values of the local grid controller measured in real time and, where applicable, correct the forecasts.

The aim of the project, which will run until mid-2021, is to gradually commercialise the prototypes that are being developed. The comprehensive solution will then be ready for nationwide use.