Advanced configuration system for cost-effective integration of distributed energy systems

The transition from the classical energy grid to a smart grid implies the introduction of information and communication technologies. In recent years, research and industry worked on enabling smart grids by developing solutions to connect and integrate distributed energy systems. Even though these efforts have made significant progress, a main issue relates to the costs of additional technical solutions needed in a smart grid. In this work, we present a gateway which enables the connection and integration of distributed energy systems into a control system. The gateway hardware is based on a market ready industrial controller by Siemens. The main contribution of this work is a sophisticated software application which supports the integration phase of the gateway. Since the integration is one of the main cost drivers of distributed energy systems, our solution reduces the integration costs significantly and enables new business models.