Renewables hold the power to make the energy transition a reality. But while their rapidly growing share of the energy mix is making our energy supply greener, it is also making it more complex. After all, we also need power when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. The more volatile the supply and demand, the more critical it becomes to act holistically and manage integrated systems effectively. This requires smart solutions like the INNIO Group’s Jenbacher myplant energy management solution.
As the energy transition progresses, the importance of decentralized energy producers such as combined heat and power (CHP) and biogas plants also is increasing. Due to their exceptional controllability, these decentralized plants are an excellent complement to volatile renewables, significantly contributing to a secure energy supply. However, the high flexibility required of these power plants also brings added complexity. Tailored, intelligent energy management is essential to improving their operation, enabling them to comply with rated outputs and funding targets while aligning thermal and electrical energy with demand.
This innovative approach is exactly what INNIO Group has achieved. Its energy management solution enables plant operators to enhance operations and thereby overall cost effectiveness using customized, demand-driven operating methods. The solution offers transparent, automated control across all of the plant’s energy producers, storage, and consumers.
How it works
Facilitating smoother operations, schedules are adjusted every five minutes, based on analysis of current and historical weather data, energy consumption and revenue forecasts, plant-specific requirements and capacities, and technical and financial operating information. Operators can use these schedules to routinely enhance their plant operation.
INNIO Group originally developed this solution to meet its own requirements at its main facility in Jenbach. From the initial idea through implementation, the Jenbacher digital team is responsible for this intelligent tool, which is designed to tackle the challenges encountered in practical applications.
Intelligent solutions for complexity: Bad Reichenhall municipal utilities
The innovative Jenbacher energy management solution is used by Germany’s Bad Reichenhall municipal utilities, among others. At the heart of its heating division is an advanced CHP system, featuring two Jenbacher CHP plants, two large groundwater heat pumps, and two power-to-heat systems that convert surplus electricity into heat. A solar plant also supports the CHP system’s power needs. Additionally, three large heat storage units enable flexible, demand-based operation of the individual heat generators, primarily for regional heat supply.
Thanks to energy management, this complex integrated system has become manageable. The optimized schedule for all systems enables the municipal utilities to generate energy in an automated, demand-driven, cost-optimized, and sustainable manner. When grid electricity is insufficient, the Jenbacher CHP plants produce power, feeding it into the grid to stabilize it and increase revenue. Conversely, when grid electricity is too high, the electric heat generators are activated and the power is used to produce heat. This approach benefits not only the municipal utilities’ balance sheet, but also its ecological footprint.
In addition to CHP and biogas plants, the Jenbacher energy management solution can be used for all other energy producers that require intelligent management, including solar and wind power plants, for example. Together, the energy and heat transition can be achieved with the help of intelligent energy management.
With our iCHP plant, which is intelligently controlled by INNIO Group technology, we save 3,600 tons of CO2 per year in the final expansion. This corresponds to the emissions of 3,000 VW Golfs. We offset the remaining amount of CO2 emissions through certified climate protection projects. This is confirmed every year by TÜV. This means that the energy we supply - heat and electricity - is climate-friendly.
