Field Test Aachen
Overview
The design and implementation of the Aachen pilot is being tailored to the needs of education/training providers and of the community (both governing bodies and citizens) in terms of (re)building knowledge, competence and skills, as identified in WP2 and related deliverables. The design and implementation also consider the rationale and the objectives of the Blueprint Strategy that is being developed in WP5. Consequently, several piloting activities have been conceived and planned, each addressing (and “testing”) one or more components and aspects of the BSDE value chain
Field Test Aachen
The design and implementation of the Aachen pilot are being tailored to the needs of education/training providers, the industry, and the community (both governing bodies and citizens) in terms of (re)building knowledge, competence, and skills
Field Test Aachen - Highlights
Smart Milano
In collaboration with Gymnasium Würselen in Würselen, Germany, and Liceo linguistico d’Arconate e d’Europa in Arconate MI, Italy, RWTH has launched an educational project named Smart Milano. This project is a part of the educational initiative between the students of the two schools guided by EU’s 2022 Competence Framework for Sustainability (GreenCOMP), with ACS providing the LEGOS demonstrator and experts advise on smart grids. In the project bilingual materials for a digital EduBreakout published on the European eTwinning platform on the topic of sustainable energy supply in cities are created, focusing on the city of Milan. The materials are prepared by the students in tandem groups. For more information about the Smart Milano project, please visit the official project page on the European eTwinning platform.
Target Group = High school students in 12th grade
EQF Level = 1, 2
Main stakeholders = RWTH, Gymnasium Würselen, Liceo linguistico d’Arconate
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to raise awareness and to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Results delivered to EC = Teaching/learning material on renewable energy and Smart grid concepts
Contents = Introduction on topics related to smart grids, energy transition challenges and digitalisation, supported by practical demonstration. Including a bilingual and pan-European cooperation element.
Archimedischer Sandkasten with city of Aachen
The “Archimedean Sandbox” event is a 3-week summer vacation program for school children from 10-16 years old organized by the city of Aachen and supervised by the local educational institution Bleiberger Fabrik in Aachen. Children can sign up for the program on individual days, weeks or the full period. The overall topic of the program is the energy generation through wind power. The Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems (ACS) is one of the technical supporters of the program next to other institutes of the RWTH. As a Kick-Off event, the children will visit ACS and interact with a small wind park and energy grid demo. This is a starting point for children to design and build their own wind setup. ACS will give advice to the children in two follow up meetings on their own wind setup project in the city center of Aachen. Furthermore, another part of the program will be an open fair for the public. At this event, ACS presents the same wind park and energy grid demo to interested pedestrians. In the following, you can find two links disseminating the program (in German) and a picture of the model.
Target Group = 10-14 years, general public
Main stakeholders = RWTH, Stadt Aachen, Bleiberger Fabrik
EQF Level = 1,2
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Results delivered to EC =Teaching/learning material on renewable energy and Smart grid concepts
Contents = Introduction on topics related to smart grids, energy transition challenges and digitalisation, supported by practical demonstration. Tailored to kids.
Gymnasium Workshop
The Gymnasium Workshop is a workshop provided by the Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems (ACS) to pupils of the lower secondary level in a STEM group. The aim is for students to understand the challenge of the energy transition and to develop possible solutions offered by the digitalisation of the energy sector. In the first part of the workshop, they acquire basic knowledge on the topics of the energy transition and digitalisation in the form of an interactive presentation. In the second part, participants have the opportunity to visualise the effects of small changes in the power grid using the Lite Emulator of Grid Operations (LEGOS) platform developed by RWTH. LEGOS is a multi-layer learning platform for demonstrating use cases of smart energy services. By means of some simple tasks, the students independently learn about the basic interrelationships in the power grid. First, they reconstruct a simple power grid by connecting the individual nodes and branches. They learn how to recognise the relationship between voltage, current and resistance and how to determine the power generated and consumed. After this introduction, they gain an initial understanding of the stability in the power grid by simulating short circuits at different locations and working together to find the best solutions to ensure security of supply in the event of a short circuit. The last part deals with the integration of renewable energies as decentralised power plants.
Target Group = High school students
EQF Level = 2, 3
Main stakeholders = RWTH, Anne Frank Gymnasium Aachen
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Results delivered to EC = Teaching/learning material on renewable energy and Smart grid concepts
Contents = Introduction on topics related to smart grids, energy transition challenges and digitalisation, supported by practical demonstration. Tailored to high school students and teachers.
Useful links
Relevant documents
Workshop on Data Platforms for the Energy Infrastructure
Together with the Institute for Electro Mobility of the Bochum University of Applied Sciences, the ACS organized a workshop on open source data platform the energy infrastructure in the IDEASFORUM e.V. of the City of Herne. The workshop will give a general overview of the challenges of data management. The focus will be the presentation of smart city applications with FIWARE and Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and the display of different functions with demonstrators. Part of the workshop will be a general introduction to FIWARE as well as MQTT, practical examples and demonstrations of smart city applications and the presentation of smart energy business models. To find out more about the IDEASFORUM e.V. of the City of Herne or the FIWARE platform visit the websites.
Target Group = Industry, municipality, citizens
EQF Level = 3 to 8
Main stakeholders = RWTH, Stadt Herne, Hochschule Bochum
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to raise awareness and to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Results delivered to EC = Computing tools and platforms
Contents = Workshops on open source data platform for smart cities
Useful links
Relevant documents
Future energy systems lecture on energy digitalisation
The lecture ‘Future Energy System – Part 2‘ is a highly interdisciplinary lecture series presented by different chairs. The lecture gives a comprehensive overview of the essential elements of the future energy system as well as important topics of sector coupling. In the individual lecture units, detailed knowledge about important technologies and evaluation systems of the energy system is conveyed. Interrelationships between the technologies of the different sectors are taught and the potentials of both the individual technologies and their effect in combination are evaluated and quantified. The main part of this pilot activity is the lecture “Digitalisation of the Energy System” from the Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems highlighting the topics such as cybersecurity, blockchain, and IoT.
Target Group = Master students
EQF Level = 7
Main stakeholders = RWTH
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Results delivered to EC = Computing tools and platforms, Learning Outcomes in terms of skills and knowledge, will be in line with ESCO and EQF framework
Contents = Lecture on Digital Energy
Useful links
Leonardo lecture on energy transition
The Leonardo lecture series “Energy Transition – Potential Tension between Economy, Politics and Science” at RWTH is an interdisciplinary teaching series of lectures open to all students. Lecturers from different scientific backgrounds and industry collectively offer this course to a broad audience by highlighting different parts of the energy transition. Depending on the study regulations and performance, 2 ECTS credits can be acquired through participation and a protocol with a critical analysis. In addition, a Certificate of Participation (0 CP, not graded) is possible. The main part of this pilot activity is the lecture “Digital Energy Revolution” by Prof. Monti from the Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems highlighting the topic digitalization of the energy system and the lecture “Urban Electrical Energy Systems” by Prof. Ponci from the Teaching and Research Area Monitoring and Distributed Control for Power Systems. The presentation of these lectures are available below. To get access to the E-learning Platform Moodle with all the material of the lecture series, contact the organizer listed on the Leonardo website.
Target Group = Bachelor students, Master students
EQF Level = 6, 7
Main stakeholders = RWTH
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Results delivered to EC =Teaching/learning material on renewable energy and Smart grid concepts
Contents = Introduction on topics related to smart grids, energy transition challenges and digitalisation, supported by practical demonstration. Tailored to kids.
Useful links
Relevant documents
ACS lecture on automation of complex systems
The lecture Automation of Complex Power Systems is an elective master course at RWTH University. Students of 13 different master programs can take this elective course.
Other RWTH Student can apply for this course as well following the predefined procedure for their enrolment.
The ACS lecture provides an introductory course of hot research topics in modern power systems. Through this course, students have a basic understanding of the technologies that are used to achieve monitoring, control, and communication of complex power systems. It contains twelve theoretical lectures and six exercise sessions. In this course beside regular course material, for better understanding of topics such as constant power load, characteristics of power flow, Park transformation, Jupyter notebooks are used. For better understanding of a voltage control topic, a demo is prepared and showed to students. Since ACS covers many topics related to modern power systems, a uniform literature is difficult to find. Because of this, a written script which will cover all the topics is in preparation as an additional material for studding. In addition, all lectures are recorded and published on Moodle platform.
Science Night at RWTH
On one night of the year, scientific institutions hold lectures and demonstrations for the public in order to present themselves and a general overview of their research topics. In 2022, RWTH organised this event on 11th November, and from 7pm to midnight, special features intertwining science with music, the arts, and other cultural aspects let young and old alike understand scientific topics in a fun and tangible way. These topics were explained via numerous lectures, experiment stands, and exhibit booths. The program addressed answers to everyday questions and also showcase cutting-edge research.
The E.ON energy research centre at the Science Night 2022 had the motto “The energy transition in today’s situation from the perspective of science”, and it hold the following lectures:
- “Energy transition in today’s situation from the perspective of science”, and
- “Reducing Gas Consumption, Saving Heating Costs”.
Target Group = High school students, Bachelor students, Master students, general public
EQF Level = 3 to 8
Main stakeholders = RWTH
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to raise awareness and to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Results delivered to EC = Teaching/learning material on renewable energy and Smart grid concepts
Contents = Introduction to digitalisation of the energy grid, energy grid demonstrator, dissemination events and material
Useful links
Relevant documents
Girl's Day at ACS
The Girls’Day is a career orientation day that takes place once a year. All girls from the fifth grade can take part. On Girls’ Day, girls get to know jobs that have so far mostly been done by men – e.g. IT specialist, industrial mechanic, carpenter, etc. Schools decide whether to take part in Girls’ Day. Nevertheless, girls/pupils can apply for a leave of absence for Girls’ Day by themselves. Pupils have to register via the My Girls’ Day website, and there, they can find on-site and digital offers for which they can register online or by telephone. The Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems (ACS) participates in this event next to other institutes of the RWTH. ACS Institute explains to girls what electricity from renewable sources does in the grid. Furthermore, how to control the interaction between electricity production and power consumption is explained. For this purpose, a plug-and-play demo is made, and girls have the opportunity to control the consumption and production of electricity by themselves. The plug-and-play demo particularly is an advanced version of the wind park and energy grid demo deployed in the piloting activity Archimedischer Sandkasten with the city of Aachen. All four institutes under the E.ON. research centre participated and explained different topics related to energy and the environment. More about this event can be found in the links below.
Target Group = 10-14 years
EQF Level = 1, 2
Main stakeholders = RWTH
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Part/s of Blueprint Strategy tested = Levers to reduce skill gaps, Design of recommendations and overall action set, general templates, best practices
Contents = Introduction on topics related to smart grids, energy transition challenges and digitalisation, supported by practical demonstration. Tailored to kids.
