Austrian DC pilot factory

Baseline and Motivation: The project aims to innovate industrial energy supply by an experimental assessment of flexible and scalable on-site direct current (DC) grids for the producing industry. It addresses the potentials of electrification and energy effi-ciency increase in the field of production by demonstrating how to advantageously introduce electrical DC grids. This allows an efficient integration of DC-based industrial loads and renewable energy (Photovoltaics) combined with electrical storages in the form of connected electric vehicle (EV) fleets. The focus is on discrete manufacturing after a die casting process, one of the most important production technologies for high-quality products. It is representative for a broad spectrum of industrial processes with electrically driven process steps, like in mechanical post-processing (e.g., variable speed drives, cooling, and hydraulic pumps in mechanical machining centres).
DC-power supply has a significant potential to increase efficiency by minimizing the need for conversion stages. At the same time, it increases flexibility to freely connect on-site generation (PV), electrical storage, and sector-coupling interfaces. Energy re-covery and reuse today are costly and inefficient due to incompatibilities (e.g., alter-nating current (AC) grid vs. pure DC-based devices/systems like DC PV, DC storages like EVs) and the fluctuation of the production process. By overcoming this barrier, the project significantly improves the energy efficiency and carbon neutrality of in-dustrial processes by the electrification of energy-intensive industries.
Goals and Expected Results: The project develops a managed, safe, flexible, and scal-able DC grid including bidirectional charging infrastructure for EVs which is replicable and transferable to any other type of industry. The project demonstrates the solution at the example of mechanical post-processing, e.g., after a die casting process cover-ing electrical storages (EV) as well as for the integration of renewable energy sources (PV). Self-consumption and peak power reduction of a production plant can be max-imized by introducing an energy management information technology (IT) platform. Following an optimization, on component and system levels the demonstration of this
Funding agency
Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) 04.03.2022 Seite 7/98
novel integral approach is performed in industrial environments at FILL GmbH and Pilotfabrik TU Wien. Business models, exploitation strategies, and the consideration of standardization and regulatory needs are paving the way for the penetration of the market.
ADC pilot factory is part of the NEFI thematic model region that positions energy-intensive and manufacturing industries and their decarbonization in the centre of a long-term in-novation process to boost technological development. ADC pilot factory contributes to the NEFI-innovation fields Industry to Grid, Energy Efficiency & New Processes, System Solutions & Infrastructure, Renewable Energy & Storage & DSM and New Business Models through its holistic system approach.