AI-Generated Summary
The Adlershof Smartgrid-Allianz (Smart Grid Alliance Adlershof) is a research and demonstration network based at the Science and Technology Park Berlin Adlershof, focused on developing an integrated smart energy management system that links heating, cooling and electricity across the district. The alliance emerged from the Energienetz Berlin Adlershof research project, which began around 2014 and was coordinated by Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) in collaboration with the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), WISTA Management GmbH and several technology partners.
The core technical achievement is a multi-energy microgrid centred on an innovative cooling network for the park's laboratory complex. Adlershof's research institutions require enormous amounts of cooling energy for laboratory processes and building climate control. The smart grid system integrates a solar photovoltaic plant, an aquifer for geothermal cooling, a brine-based cooling network and an ice storage unit (Eisspeicher) at the Centre for Photonics and Optics. This ice storage allows the decoupling of cooling production from cooling demand, enabling load shifting to periods with high renewable electricity production or low spot market prices.
The alliance developed cross-media energy management software that optimises both economic and ecological performance, using real-time electricity price signals from the EEX spot market to schedule cooling production. A Smart Grid smartphone app, developed by TU Berlin, was created for educational purposes and has been used in schools and university programmes since 2018.
Research outputs from the project have been published in academic journals and presented at international conferences including VDE ETG Congress. The project was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (EFRE). For smart city practitioners, Adlershof's smart grid represents a practical example of sector coupling and district-level energy optimisation in a real commercial and research environment.