Energy Research for Cities of the Future
Lukas Krammer, Siemens, Austria
Last-Mile Logistics in Urban Areas
Tolga Bektas, University of Liverpool Management School, United Kingdom
Digital Energy
Matthias Jarke, RWTH Aachen, Germany
Energy Research for Cities of the Future
Lukas Krammer
Siemens
Austria
Brief Bio
Dr. Lukas Krammer is Senior Scientist at Siemens Corporate Technology located in Vienna, Austria. Besides that, he is working as lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences “FH Burgenland”. His main research topics are automation systems and the Industrial Internet of Things in the context of smart infrastructure. Before he joined Siemens in 2015, he was working as researcher and lecturer at the Vienna University of Technology. He received his master degree in 2010 and his Ph.D. degree in 2015 both from the Vienna University of Technology. During his doctoral studies he was working on dependability aspects of automation systems.
Abstract
Shaping the future of energy over the long term means reducing CO2 emissions whilst at the same time guaranteeing security of supply. This requires a change of paradigms in energy production, transmission and consumption. The focus is on an ever-growing number of decentralized energy producers, integrating prosumers (consumers that produce) and making use of new energy storage technologies. Especially in creating technical solutions and working out business models, there are a lot of challenges. The research company “Aspern Smart City Research (ASCR)” was founded to tackle these challenges by focusing on solutions for the future of energy in urbanized areas.
In this talk, I will give an overview on the prerequisites, history and success factors of this research joint-venture between a network operator, an international technology company, an energy generation and supply company, and the City of Vienna. After an introduction on the unique and living testbed, I will further focus on the core research topics – the energy grid, the buildings, information and communication technology, and the users. Finally, I will sketch our recent results and new challenges we are facing.
Last-Mile Logistics in Urban Areas
Tolga Bektas
University of Liverpool Management School
United Kingdom
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Brief Bio
Tolga Bektas is Professor of Logistics Management and Director of Research for the Operations Management Subject Group at the University of Liverpool Management School. He holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering (2005) from Bilkent University, postdoctoral research experience at the University of Montreal from 2005 to 2007, and held academic posts at the University of Southampton from 2007 to 2018 prior to joining the University of Liverpool. His research interests are in the planning and optimisation of operations arising within freight logistics and distribution, including vehicle routing and scheduling, intermodal transportation and urban logistics, with a particular emphasis on reducing environmental externalities from transport. He has been investigator in a number of externally funded projects on railway timetable optimisation, maintenance planning in sea vessels and last-mile distribution in cities. He has published widely in international journals, presented keynotes at national and international conferences, and authored a book titled Freight Transport and Distribution printed by CRC Press.
Abstract
Freight transport makes up 16% of all road vehicle activity in UK cities, with lorries and vans performing 30% of their total activity in urban areas. Around 2.4 billion parcels were sent in the UK in 2017-18, for example, giving rise to significant operational challenges in performing last-mile deliveries. In this talk, I will present some of the findings of the research project titled FTC2050: Freight Traffic Control 2050 (http://www.ftc2050.com) that looked at the collective transport and energy impacts of current 'business-as-usual' carrier activities in London. The aim was to improve carrier collection and delivery schedules by investigating the potential of new business models for reducing localised transport impacts. I will describe the practical challenges faced by last-mile logistics operators, and present alternative distribution models in the way of improving the overall efficiency of the operations.
Digital Energy
Matthias Jarke
RWTH Aachen
Germany
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Brief Bio
Matthias Jarke is professor of information systems at RWTH Aachen Universities and Director of the Fraunhofer FIT Institute for Applied IT at Birlinghoven Castle, Germany. After studying business administration and computer science, and receiving a doctorate in Business Informatics from the University of Hamburg, he served on the faculties of Stern School of Business, New York University, and the University of Passau, prior to joining RWTH Aachen in 1991. From 2010-2015, he was part of the Fraunhofer Presidential Board with responsibility for the 19 ICT institutes in Fraunhofer.Matthias Jarke’s main research area has been metadata management for applications in business, culture, and engineering. He is currently co-speaker of the national interdisciplinary excellence cluster “Internet of Production” at RWTH Aachen, co-initiator of the Fraunhofer-led International Data Spaces Initiative, and co-founder of the Fraunhofer Center on Digital Energy. He has served as Editor of leading journals, and Program Chair of almost all leading database and IS conferences. As president of the GI German Informatis Society, he was scientific coordinator of the first national “Informatics Year” during which Chancellor Merkel started her series of Annual IT Summits. Matthias is member of numerous national and international advisory boards, elected member of the acatech National Academy of Science and Engineering, ACM Fellow, and GI Fellow.
Abstract
In the presence of climate change, the need for less carbon-intensive renewable energy is obvious, equally for households and energy-intensive industries. At the same time, the growth of solar and wind energy implies much more temporal and geographic fluctuation and volatility between electrical energy supply and demand. Local balancing can reduce the need for expensive and controversial long-range high voltage lines, but the huge growth of small and medium energy prosumers also places high demand on flexible and scalable planning and control, as well as revised business models. The need for multiple kinds of digital solutions ranging from modeling and simulation, to sensing, communication and control software is obvious and under active investigation. However, neither network operators nor individual players will rely on simulations along, yet real large-scale experiments testing how realistic the simulations are hard to conduct in the fully connected electricity networks. And, of course, digitization of this critical infrastructure creates new hazards in terms of IT security that must be mitigated. Last not least, experience not just in the current Corona crisis has shown how tricky the design of stable business and public support models for renewable can be.
While most of these issues individually have been subject to quite a bit of research, we see a need to bring the required cross-disciplinary competencies together in a coherent strategic setting. The recently founded Fraunhofer Center Digital Energy at RWTH Aachen University brings together leading researchers in the theory and practice of renewable electrity networks, software support for smart grid and energy-saving strategies in home and factories, IT security, and business administration in order to investigate seamless solutions from the business model and process level all the way down to physical electricity networks. The talk will illustrate these issues by a number of recent projects, including e.g. flexibilization of industrial demand, blockchain solutions for small-scale energy trading, protection of digitized networks against hacker attacks, and others.