2nd SmartCoDe Expert Cooperation Workshop on Energy Efficiency in Buildings 2011


Published: Fri, 2011/08/26
Found at:   Pressebox
Contact Person:

Open for registration

(PresseBox) Hannover, 26.08.2011,
The SmartCoDe project team cordially invites you to join us for the 2nd SmartCoDe Open Expert Cooperation Workshop on October 12, 2011 at the Hotel Westbahnhof in Vienna, Austria. The objective of the workshop is to communicate and discuss the SmartCoDe project’s status and progress, particularly:

  • The implementation of intelligent energy management methods that enable automatic matching of energy consumption with the available energy supply by reducing energy consumption or switching it between different supplies, both small- and large-scale.
  • The development of highly sophisticated renewable energy forecasting methods, for small-scale generation.

"In addition to the project partner presentations – please see https://www.fp7-smartcode.eu/... for the full agenda – the SmartCoDe coordinator, edacentrum’s Peter Neumann, is happy to announce that invited papers will be presented by:"

  • Prof. Dr. Hermanns of the University of Saarland: Energy Forecasting
  • Dr. Djokic of the University of Edinburgh: Energy Management
  • Prof. Dr. Boggasch from the Ostfalia Hochschule for Applied Sciences: Energy Storage
    Renewable Energy Imperatives

Events in the year since the last SmartCoDe Expert Cooperation Workshop on Energy Efficiency have further emphasized the urgent need to replace traditional energy with renewable energy. However, the issue is not a purely fossil fuel problem. Certainly, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power plants remain one of the major problems. But the catastrophic Fukushima incident is a reminder that carbon dioxide is not the only concern – we must prepare for the replacement of nuclear energy. If decisions to eventually discontinue nuclear energy generation are not to lead to even greater consumption of fossil fuels, we must dramatically accelerate our development and deployment of renewable energy sources. Failure is not an option.

The shift to renewable energy sources presents us with two fundamental imperatives:

  • We must take measures to manage the volatility and unpredictability inherent to almost all major renewable energy sources.
  • We must match our future energy consumption to the available supply of (renewable) energy, and not vice versa as it is today.

In addition, we must enable intelligent (“smart”) energy nets that allow distributed energy generation and storage, and we must devise efficient energy storage methods, such as pump storage, power-to-gas, batteries, and so on.

SmartCoDe Tackles the Imperatives
The SmartCoDE project focuses on the two imperatives. So what is the status of the project? Much work has been done already – and is ongoing. For instance, the team has completed a board-level prototype of the SmartCoDe chip. The chip will enable communications and control between energy-using products (EuPs), for example, domestic appliances, and an energy management unit (EMU), enabling the latter to control the EuPs according to predefined requirements. Also, an initial version of the EMU software has already been developed.

Further, the SmartCoDe team has established the project’s demonstrator in a building in Austria (please see https://www.fp7-smartcode.eu). It has been equipped with a fully-functional EMU that runs the initial version of the new software, additional research equipment from Bosch-Siemens GmbH, one of SmartCoDe’s associated partner (https://www.fp7-smartcode.eu/...), a small-scale wind turbine to provide local energy generation, and a board-level prototype of the chip.

This workshop delves into the details – and audience participation is welcome!


About edacentrum
edacentrum is an institution dedicated to promote electronic design automation (EDA) research and development funded by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research). It initiates, evaluates and supervises industry-driven R&D projects and offers a comprehensive spectrum of services on all matters concerning EDA, particularly project management of R&D projects. By encouraging EDA cluster research projects and EDA networks, it cross-leverages and reinforces the EDA expertise of universities and research institutes.

edacentrum provides a communication platform for the EDA community; it seeks to inform upper management, the public and the political arena about the central importance of design automation for solving complex system and semiconductor problems, especially those associated with nanoelectronics.