R&D project led by ÖKOTEC

EnEffReg® – Innovative and automatic system control

The software solution for energy efficiency controlling EnEffCo® developed by ÖKOTEC creates an important basic prerequisite for companies to analyze, optimize and control their energy consumption and the efficiency of their plants. Increasing energy efficiency is becoming more and more relevant in industrial companies from an economic and political point of view.

The EnEffReg® research and development project “Holistic energy efficiency control for supply engineering plants in industrial production” led by ÖKOTEC goes one step further: The plants are not only monitored, but also automatically controlled according to energy efficiency criteria via an intelligent control system. This enables even more efficient plant operation and correspondingly greater energy savings. In cooperation with Fraunhofer IPK, ÖKOTEC is developing a universally applicable control framework in which optimization algorithms are tested both on simulations and in practice at the application partners Bayer Pharma and Daimler in Berlin and ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe in Duisburg.

Using the key figure methodology developed by ÖKOTEC in a previous project for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, statistical methods and artificial intelligence in real time, the aim is to advance to the energetically optimal control of the plants. Together with the project partners, utility plants were selected for testing. At Bayer Pharma, these are air-conditioning systems in the pharmaceutical industry, at Daimler a cold and cooling water system in the automotive industry, and at ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe a water management system in steel production. The plants have already been recorded in accordance with the key figure methodology and initial optimization strategies have been developed and implemented.

The EnEffReg® project runs for three years and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).