The electricity grid was designed in the 70ties to deliver energy from few power plants to many electricity consumers. Today chellange is the integration of many small electricity producers as photovoltaic installations or wind turbines on the one hand and new consumption profiles like e-mobility on the other. Resilience of the existing grid to these new requirements is mandatory and it is necessary to extend the lifetime of the existing grid for a smooth transition to the next generation.

Fit4eChange focuses on the retrofit of the low voltage grid of “Netze Duisburg GmbH” and “ELE Verteilnetz GmbH”. Smart sensors for the electricity network’s components will be developed by “Fraunhofer IMS”, “Turck duotec GmbH” and “ithinx GmbH”. With a non or minimally invasive installation these IoT devices will monitor the components state, aggregate the data and transmit it by LPWAN technology to a digital twin.

“Nuromedia” will develop the digital twin with a backend to the sensor and controller side and user interfaces to monitor and control the state of the grid with its components. The digital twin will have an AI for analytics and prediction on the grid state. This AI will optimize maintenance and replacement tasks to the grid components. “EEBus Initiative e.V.” will focus on the standardisation of the energy related information exchange.

Fit4eChange was created in the “The Industrial Innovation Excellence Cluster (SPIN)” and is funded by the ministry MWIDE of North Rhine-Westphalia.