Long Night of Research 2024

26.05.2024

At the Long Night of Research 2024, the question "How will the sustainable energy system of the future be created?" was answered at the IEE stand.

On May 24, 2024, the Long Night of Research took place across Austria. Under the motto "Participate. Be amazed. Discover.", visitors had the opportunity to experience research first-hand at 2,800 stations as part of guided tours, lectures, live demonstrations and hands-on experiments. The Institute of Electricity Economics and Energy Innovation also gave an insight into the research activities at the institute that evening under the motto "How will the sustainable energy system of the future be created?"

The research field

In order to combat climate change, a transformation in our energy system is necessary. In the future, electricity and heat will no longer have to be generated with coal, oil and gas, but sustainably from solar, wind and hydropower. The required technologies, such as photovoltaic modules or wind turbines, are already well advanced and available at low prices. But the question of how the entire energy system can be converted at the lowest possible cost is not so easy to answer. Some of the questions we are researching are:

• Where does the electricity come from when there is no wind and the sun is not shining?
• Where and how many wind turbines and photovoltaic modules should be built?
• How do we get the electricity to where it is needed?
• How can solar power be stored during the day for the night?

Opportunity to get involved

To better demonstrate the challenges, a small model energy system was created. Visitors could use this to try to make the perfect, i.e. most cost-effective and sustainable investment decisions to provide the energy needed. Ambition was quickly aroused across all age groups and numerous teams did their best to find the optimum and make it onto the scoreboard of the best solutions.
Even for small test systems, it became clear how quickly it becomes very challenging to find a good solution “manually”! If you want to examine the transformation of the Austrian or even European energy system, there are tens of millions of variables, technical limitations and legal regulations instead of a handful of decision variables. In order to be able to make the right decisions, we at the Institute of Electricity Economics and Energy Innovation develop models such as LEGO that depict the real energy system as accurately as possible. With the help of sophisticated optimization algorithms and sufficient computing power, the optimal solution can be found: for example, where new power lines should be built, or where and how much photovoltaics can be added without overloading the grid. As part of projects, for example, the need for line expansion between eastern and western Austria was shown, the storage requirements in the Austrian energy system in 2040 were analyzed, or the dynamic power control of PV systems was examined.

Response and outlook

The hands-on experience aroused interest in the energy industry in many people. The simple test example can quickly explain why apparently simple solutions such as PV expansion alone do not adequately solve our problems. In addition, many exciting discussions on the subject of energy arose that evening! In the future, based on the feedback, our test model will be expanded and made available to a wider audience outside of the Long Night of Research.