My research

Following the introduction of energy communities in European law, they are now transposed into the national laws of the member states. Previous research in this area has focused on various aspects, but not yet on data processing and data protection in the community itself. For the timely allocation of the generated energy to consumers within the community, necessarily energy data needs to be accessed in a high frequency that is shown to be problematic in terms of privacy. Operation systems for energy communities thus need to adhere to the principles of the GDPR. Main responsibilities regarding data acquisition and transfer are among the duties of the distribution system operator. However, for future use cases, the current legal status may not be sufficient.

The current movement within the energy market caused by the need for climate measures along with emerging new technologies leads to an evolution to a more intelligent, decentralized power network. Energy communities are part of this progress by jointly producing, consuming, storing, and sharing energy to increase the self-consumption of locally generated energy. These energy communities are the focus of this article. Besides the legal framework, in particular, the European Union’s Clean Energy Package, the implementation of energy communities will depend heavily on suitable information and communications technology (ICT) solutions, e.g., the Blockchain technology which again rises legal implications like privacy issues. This article provides an interdisciplinary overview about the legal, economic, and technical questions arising due to the deployment of energy communities in their integration into the existing power system. A concrete implementation of a Renewable Energy Community by utilizing Blockchain technology and the implications regarding privacy issues, energy efficiency as well as profitability aspects are discussed and results of a comprehensive stimulative study on energy savings for community customers are presented.

Energy Communities and different forms of self-consumption, as introduced by the European Union’s ‘Clean energy for all Europeans package’, may become an important elements of future energy systems. Their acceptance and implementation will importantly depend on their transposition into member states’ national law. In this paper, we investigate the ongoing national transpositions, in particular regarding their integration in the electricity network structure and related grid tariffs. As an example, we focus on the corresponding draft laws in Austria, and undertake a comparison with other EU member states. Actual implementations may be either supported or hampered by details of the legal framework. Accompanying support measures necessarily need to take the national structure of the energy system into account.

Energiegemeinschaften sollen Bürgern eine Möglichkeit bieten, sich direkt an der Energie-wende zu beteiligen. Neben der Systemintegration – im Besonderen der Abstimmung mit den Netzbetreibern – können jedoch rechtliche Notwendigkeiten einen Hemmschuh für die Errichtung und den Betrieb darstellen. Im Zusammenhang mit Energiegemeinschaften stellen sich Rechtsfragen, die Anknüpfungspunkte quer durch eine Vielzahl an Rechtsgebieten bieten und die Umsetzung für den einzelnen Bürger insofern kompliziert gestalten können. Der Umfang der Beteiligung und der damit einhergehende Nutzen für die Energiewende wird jedoch maßgeblich von den rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen und der Minimierung der organisatorischen Last für Gründung, Umsetzung und Betrieb einer Energiegemeinschaft abhängen.

Complex cyber-physical systems (CPS), in which Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology is used, require advanced software maintenance mechanisms to remain dependable and secure. A solution is needed that allows operators to manage software in a CPS not only based on requirements from the information and communications technology (ICT) domain but also from the applications domain. The Knowledge-Based-Software Management (KBSM) described in this paper adds an additional layer on top of existing software management systems to integrate the management of the software domain and of the physical domain. This framework was implemented and tested in the smart grid domain as an example for a complex CPS.

Today’s energy grids are facing huge challenges caused by the growing diversity of energy consumers and producers as well as an ongoing increase of renewable energy sources and e-mobility. Hence, it is essential that the grids continuously evolve by introducing new monitoring, protection and optimization concepts including machine learning (ML) approaches. To overcome the lack of existing monitoring data for rare real-world grid events, this paper presents a concept for generating training data sets for ML approaches based on a multi-modal grid simulation tool. The simulation tool as well as the proposed semi-automated data generation approach are introduced and the concept is verified based on a real-world battery storage maintenance event.

The European Union’s Clean Energy Package aims to bring the European Union (EU) and its member states on track for the 2030 climate targets. Besides other legal acts, the package includes the revised Renewable Energy Directive (EU) 2018/2001 (RED) and the revised Electricity Directive (EU) 2019/944 (ED), both introducing several related new actors to the energy market. EU member states are expected to introduce them on four levels, each of which shares common features but also includes some differences. In this paper we will focus on peer-to-peer (P2P) trading between the participants, for example by utilizing Blockchain technology. While the recently completed Austrian research project Blockchain Grid1 has mainly observed these aspects in RECs, the same concepts are expected to be applicable to some extent in the other levels.

With the increase of the volume of data produced by IoT devices, there is a growing demand of applications capable of elaborating data anywhere along the IoT-to-Cloud path (Edge/Fog). In industrial environments, strict real-time constraints require computation to run as close to the data origin as possible (e.g., IoT Gateway or Edge nodes), whilst batch-wise tasks such as Big Data analytics and Machine Learning model training are advised to run on the Cloud, where computing resources are abundant. The H2020 IoTwins project leverages the digital twin concept to implement virtual representation of physical assets (e.g., machine parts, machines, production/control processes) and deliver a software platform that will help enterprises, and in particular SMEs, to build highly innovative, AI-based services that exploit the potential of IoT/Edge/Cloud computing paradigms. In this paper, we discuss the design principles of the IoTwins reference architecture, delving into technical details of its components and offered functionalities, and propose an exemplary software implementation.

Ein wichtiger Baustein der Energiewende wird in immer größer werdendem Ausmaß die Verfügbarkeit von Daten. Dieser Artikel geht daher der Frage nach, wie große Mengen an Energie(verbrauchs)daten, die für smarte Lösungsansätze und Technologien erforderlich sind, datenschutzrechtlich zu qualifi zieren sind, welche Rechte und Pfl ichten sich daraus ergeben und präsentiert, wie etwaige Problemstellungen neuer Technologien mit diesen Vorschriften in Einklang zu bringen sind.

Durch das nunmehr als Ministerialentwurf vorliegende EAG-Paket sollen auch die unionsrechtlich im Clean Energy Package beinhalteten Energiegemeinschaften national eingeführt werden. Diese bauen in hohem Ausmaß auf die bereits geregelten Gemeinschaftlichen Erzeugungsanlagen auf. Dennoch ist derzeit noch eine Vielzahl von Fragen, nicht nur in energierechtlicher Hinsicht, offen. Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich hauptsächlich mit zivil- und gesellschaftsrechtlichen Aspekten iZm Energiegemeinschaften.

Die Wiener Bauordnungsnovelle 2020 sieht eine Verpflichtung zur Installation von Photovoltaikanlagen sowie zur Errichtung von Ladeinfrastruktur für Elektrofahrzeuge bei beinahe allen Neubauten in Wien vor.

Energy communities have recently been introduced as new legal actors in the European Union’s energy system. This paper introduces first concepts to energy communities’ planning and operation based on the CLUE research project. It introduces the legal framework and identifies open issues for the legal transpositions into national law, as well as arising questions concerning planning and operation.

Energy Communities will be an essential element of the future energy system. Especially Renewable Energy Communities are gaining high attention in many European countries and their implementation, characteristics and use cases are elaborated in many research and development activities all around the world. Within the Austrian research project Blockchain Grid, a Blockchain-based Renewable Energy Community is implemented and field-tested in Heimschuh, Styria. It supports different technical applications like self-consumption optimization and peer-to-peer energy trading for customers, and a novel approach for grid capacity management supporting distribution system operators. These use cases have been implemented and validated in simulative studies showing promising potential for total energy costs for energy community members.

Energy communities, as recently introduced by the European Union’s ’Clean Energy for All Europeans Package’ need to be transformed into the national laws of the member states until Mid of 2021. By integrating local energy producers and consumers, they aim for an improvement of energy efficiency, increasing integration of renewable energy sources, and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on a local level. Individuals will be enabled to take over an active part in the energy transition. While a number of remaining open issues were identified, this paper especially deals with profitability aspects for local energy producers and consumers, as well as for the community itself. As this topic will have a significant impact on the participation, the applicability and acceptance of energy communities will also be affected.

Complex cyber-physical systems like the Smart Grid, in which Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology is used, require advanced software maintenance mechanisms to remain dependable and secure. In this paper, requirements and tasks for an application lifecycle management for IIoT use cases, with special focus on the domains of Smart Grid and Smart Buildings, are defined and state-of-the-art software deployment processes from IoT use cases are evaluated for usage in those domains. As there is no suitable framework, an approach for the deployment of OSGi components is described. On top of such software deployment tools, a knowledgebased software management framework that utilizes domain specific knowledge to create and execute software rollout plans will be presented. Thus, dependencies can be managed on device, system and domain level.

The European Union’s Clean Energy Package introduces two kinds of energy communities, namely the Renewable Energy Community (REC) in the Renewable Energy Directive of 2018 and the Citizen Energy Community (CEC) in the Electricity Directive of 2019. They aim for local improvements of energy efficiency, increasing integration of renewable energy sources, and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, to be achieved by jointly producing, temporarily storing, sharing, consuming, and selling locally generated energy. Households and individuals shall thus be enabled to take an active part in the energy transition. When utilizing blockchain technology for the implementation of such energy communities, as proposed in current research projects, a focus must be laid on the technology-inherent area of conflict with privacy issues, especially since data on households’ energy consumption count as personal data.

Ein Ziel des „Clean Energy Package“ ist die Reduktion der Treibhausgasemissionen im Energiebereich. Dieses enthält auch Maßnahmen auf lokaler Ebene, wie Energiegemeinschaften, in welchen sich Erzeuger und Verbraucher zusammenschließen sollen, sodass auch Privathaushalte selbst zur Energiewende beitragen können.

Im Rahmen der Erneuerbare-Energien-Richtlinie werden Erneuerbare- Energie-Gemeinschaften (EEG) vorgesehen, die durch den Austausch lokal erzeugter Energie die Nutzung erneuerbarer Energie erhöhen sollen. Im österreichischen Projekt «Blockchain Grid» wird eine EEG über einen Blockchainbasierten Ansatz realisiert und in einem umfassenden Feldtest validiert. Die Autoren beleuchten in diesem Beitrag die Herausforderungen des Betriebs einer EEG in Bezug auf den Datenschutz und stellen die im Projekt entwickelte datenschutzfreundliche Umsetzung einer Blockchain-Anwendung vor.

Main goals of building automation are to optimize costs and to reduce energy consumption. For these tasks, high amounts of data are collected, including data directly related to an individual inhabitant. Such data usage possibly infringes the privacy of a person, thus compromises on their collection and processing need to be found. In this paper, we enumerate possible solutions to privacy issues in the Smart Building domain. Tightly connected are privacy issues introduced by Smart Meters, currently being rolled out in many member states of the European Union, including households not being part of a Smart Building. As their privacy issues have been heavily discussed in the literature, they serve as the main example for described privacy-preserving solutions.

Building upon our previous research regarding privacy issues in the Smart Grid and Smart Building domain we explore these topics in the area of software updates in critical infrastructures. Since vital parts of the control in these cyber-physical systems are realized on edge devices or are dynamically moved from the backend to the edge devices, secure communication and computing in these components are of vital importance to ensure overall dependability of these systems especially when (software) changes are applied to the system. Therefore in this paper, we compare and analyze security features and approaches of three IoT frameworks that provide means to implement distributed control of critical infrastructure.

Automation has arrived in the low voltage grid domain. In the next few years, the secondary substation —at the barriers of medium and low voltage grids—will thus be upgraded to enable novel functions. In this paper, we present various smart grid applications running on such intelligent secondary substations (iSSN) including their interaction with each other. We integrate energy consumption and production data, as well as forecasts, sensed from the smart buildings’ energy management systems (BEMSs) into the operation of the low voltage grid. A suitable framework for those modular applications includes features to initiate their installation, update, removal, the remote operator site, and not requiring staff on-site for such typical reappearing maintenance tasks.

In the domain of energy automation, where a massive number of software-based IoT services interact with a complex dynamic system, processes for software installation and software update become more important and more complex. These processes have to ensure that the dependencies on all layers are fulfilled, including dependencies arising due to the energy system controlled by IT components being a hidden communication channel between these components. In addition, the processes have to be resilient against faults in and attacks to both the energy grid and the communication network. The ERA-Net funded project LarGo! aims at developing and testing processes for the large scale rollout of software applications in the power grid domain as well as the user domain. This article describes a work in progress and the project’s roadmap to solve the technical issues. It investigates the problems that arise from the interlocking of the two networks – the power grid and the communication network. Based on this analysis a first set of requirements for a rollout process in such a Smart Grid is derived and the chosen approach to verify the resilience of the developed processes under research is described.

Die Energiewende bewirkt eine Transformation des Energiesystems, die zu großen Herausforderungen für den Verteilernetzbetrieb führt. Dies ist der Tatsache geschuldet, dass bis dato passive Verteilernetz-Abschnitte, welche historisch reine Verbraucher waren, nunmehr durch dort verortete dezentrale Erzeugung und proaktive Netzteilnehmer – wie Photovoltaikanlage, Speicher und E-Mobility – aktiv Einfluss auf den Netzbetrieb nehmen. Durch die Integration und den Einsatz intelligenter Automatisierung sollen diese Netzabschnitte in Zukunft aktiv gesteuert werden. Das daraus resultierende Gesamtsystem stellt ein cyber-physikalisches System dar, dass durch einen hohen Komplexitätsgrad gekennzeichnet ist und die elektrische und algorithmische Welt mittels geeigneter IKTInfrastruktur koppelt. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass die Steuerung und Automatisierung in solchen Systemen immer individueller wird. Dafür bedarf es flexibler und (hinsichtlich Installation und Wartung) einfach zu bedienender Automatisierungssysteme, die es den Betreibern von Verteilernetzen erlauben, individualisierte Lösungen nahtlos in ihren Netzen zu integrieren. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt einen Systemansatz, der aufbauend auf einer Industrial Internet-of-Things(IoT)-Plattform die Interaktion der notwendigen physikalischen Modelle und Anwendungen realisiert und somit zur Lösung dieser Herausforderungen eingesetzt werden kann.

Novel Smart Grid functions demand for reliable grid topology information. Currently, on distribution grid level, such information is only statically (i.e. configured once – e.g., in CIM or alike format) or not at all available. The static topology data may become invalid due to a switching action or grid extension. In this paper we present a Smart Grid application, which validates such a given CIM-represented grid topology on the basis of power profiles measured by grid monitoring devices. The topology is extracted as graph representation, field measurements are represented by an abstract grid model, and correlation of load profiles is calculated by a presented comparison algorithm. We demonstrate the application of the topology validation in the ASCR Smart City testbed and show its extension to a topology identification application. The two applications’ field usage proves useful functions on which further Smart Grid applications will build upon.

IoT-functionality can broaden the scope of distribution system automation in terms of functionality and communication. However, it also poses risks regarding resource consumption and security. This article presents a field approved IoT-enabled smart grid middleware, which allows for flexible deployment and management of applications within smart grid operation. In the first part of the work, the resource consumption of the middleware is analyzed and current memory bottlenecks are identified. The bottlenecks can be resolved by introducing a new entity that allows to dynamically load multiple applications within one JVM. The performance was experimentally tested and the results suggest that its application can significantly reduce the applications’ memory footprint on the physical device. The second part of the study identifies and discusses potential security threats, with a focus on attacks stemming from malicious software applications within the framework. In order to prevent such attacks a proxy based prevention mechanism is developed and demonstrated.

In the past decades building automation and control systems emerged from simple control systems for heating, ventilation and air conditioning facilities to complex applications covering different domains and controlling a huge number of entities. When considering complex automation systems, the whole life-cycle has to be taken into account. Besides operation, the installation and configuration is of utmost importance. These initial steps of a building automation systems require a huge amount of manual engineering and are often the source of errors. In order to reduce engineering effort and error probability, this paper introduces a new provisioning approach for building automation systems based on visual light communication. This concept significantly simplifies the identification of technical components with almost no additional hardware requirements. Technical components are communicating with a mobile device in order to allow an easy and intuitive identification and further configuration of the system. In order to show the feasibility of this approach, the concept is integrated in typical engineering processes. An implementation based on a state-of-the-art building automation technology proves the practical applicability of the concept.

The digitalisation of power grid infrastructure reaches the distribution grid level. Novel applications on substation level and their implementation on thousands of automation components will result in an increase in operational efforts that is likely to exceed the economic advantage of the applications. To counteract this negative trend, this work presents an approach for smart grid and smart city applications. The authors introduce applications developed for an Austrian Smart City project, show their interaction, and present first results and field experiences.

In order to exploit the full potential of IoT-enabled power distribution grids, Smart Grid applications are developed. Their operation on resource-constraint automation devices requires for memory optimized operation. In this paper we present field-approved operation and management solutions for Smart Grid applications, based on a distributed middleware. We introduce a new entity to allow for dynamically loading Smart Grid applications within one JVM. Presented experiments demonstrate the reduction of the memory footprint on the physical device.

Novel software applications are developed and used in order to take full advantage of Smart Grid and Smart City infrastructures. In our concrete Smart City field trial, a distributed middleware is used to connect such interacting Smart Grid applications. This work presents a threat analysis for this middlewarebased communication containing six potential attack patterns. As countermeasure against the potential attacks, we present the security concept for the interacting Smart Grid applications consisting of the middleware’s encryption layer and trusted applications.

In today’s building automation systems, high amounts of data are collected in order to optimize costs and reduce energy consumption. Some of these data can directly or indirectly be related to an individual person, leading to a possible privacy infringement. Therefore, special care has to be taken in order to protect personal data and privacy. Furthermore, the use of personal data is restricted by law. This article addresses some of the issues and gives possible solutions. As privacy issues introduced by Smart Meters are tightly connected and have been heavily dis-cussed in literature, this work will use them as the main example for describing privacy preserving solutions.

Durch die Installation von intelligenten Messgeräten (Smart Meter) in den Haushalten kommen Verbraucher erstmals in Berührung mit den Veränderungen der Energieinfrastruktur und der Energiewende. Da bei den vorgesehenen kurzen Ausleseintervallen weitreichende Daten über das individuelle Benutzerverhalten und die Gesundheit des Verbrauchers aus dem Stromverbrauch eruiert werden können, ergeben sich Probleme in Bezug auf Privatsphäre und Datenschutz. Der Artikel zeigt mögliche Lösungsvorschläge auf und vergleicht diese mit der Umsetzung im österreichischen Recht.

The transition of classical power distribution grids towards actively operated smart grids locates new functionality into intelligent secondary substations. Increased computational power and newly attained communication infrastructure in thousands of secondary substations allowfor the distributed realization of sophisticated functions, which were inconceivable a few years ago. These novel functions (e.g., voltage and reactive power control, distributed generation optimization or decentralized market interaction) can primarily be realized by software components operated on powerful automation devices located on secondary substation level. The effective and safe operation of such software is crucial and has a broad set of requirements. In this paper, we present a flexible and modular software ecosystem for automation devices of substations, which is able to handle these requirements. This ecosystem contains means for high performance data exchange and unification, automatic application provisioning and configuration functions, dependency management, and others. The application of the ecosystem is demonstrated in the context of a field operation example, which has been developed within an Austrian smart grid research project.

Gridlink provides a communication infrastructure for the implementation of distributed control systems in Java. It is a completely decentralized solution where the communication partners dynamically form a cluster of known instances during execution. Gridlink uses a distributed event bus based on an asynchronous communication model. A typical Gridlink system is built from a set of modules that execute a distributed application and that communicate with each other by exchanging messages. We present a smart grid use case dealing with the detection and handling of voltage band violations in low voltage networks deployed in secondary substation nodes.

Resilient operation of novel networked smart grid systems requires for active distribution grid monitoring, management, and control. In order to reduce system complexity and harness fast control interaction, grid-related software applications (e.g., voltage control) are destined to operate directly on a controller in the respective intelligent secondary substation (iSSN). In this paper, we propose a flexible and performant software framework for hosting of smart grid applications – the so called iSSN application frame. It provides means for efficient field measurement access, data preprocessing and representation. As such, it supports simple development and field deployment for such applications. For the iSSN application frame, we developed a set of independent software components for the representation of smart buildings and the distribution grid, as well as a data storage. The components are loosely coupled by a cloud-based middleware, which allows for flexible extension. Thus, the iSSN application frame forms the foundation for the efficient operation of novel distribution grid applications.

We present a Java-based embedded data store for edge-to-cloud storage optimized for Smart Grid time-series measurements. The key performance indicators expected of applications and operators of a Smart Grid monitoring and control system - frequent readouts, immutability, statistical indicators - are optimally supported. Furthermore, the data store is tailored for operation on platforms with limited storage and processing resources. We show that our implementation is superior to state of the art and off-the-shelf solutions in data retrieval time and needed storage size.

The advent of highly volatile components like buildings with PV, batteries, e-cars, and building energy management systems brings on the one hand new challenges in grid quality assurance to the distribution system operator. On the other hand, these buildings can be used for market-based grid control concepts and thus bring new opportunities with them. We describe a novel control concept and provide the results of the first successful proof-of-concept.