Smart and Sustainable Electrification

Distribution Grid Components

Distribution grids today undergo a significant change, challenged by the ever-increasing shares of converter-connected renewable energy sources, changing load profiles of the industry and modern compensation systems. The switching technology utilized in the context of distribution must tackle the challenges brought by this change, providing means for safe, reliable, and efficient switching.

ABB Research uses both numerical and experimental methods to develop next generation of reliable and efficient circuit breakers. Today, spring-driven breakers constitute a large fraction of the market in medium- and low-voltage range. Therefore, we continuously optimize the underlying mechanisms and actuation principles to push their performances to their physical limits. Electromagnetically actuated circuit breakers are an alternative to the traditional devices, and they are particularly well suited to meet the requirements of more frequent, synchronous, and adaptive switching. The development of those breakers requires a deep understanding of phenomena stemming from the domains of mechanics, electromagnetics, and control.

Supporting global sustainability goals is a key driver of our research. In this context, we develop novel mechanism and actuation principles for SF6-free medium-voltage gas-insulated switchgears. These technological solutions enable a cost-efficient current interruption in compact eco-efficient switchgear and support the elimination of SF6 enforced by regulatory authorities.

A further aspect of sustainability is to extend the lifetime of installed switching devices by condition monitoring and diagnostics. Advances in sensor technology, availability of information and communication technologies and vast data processing capabilities enable modern, condition-based maintenance strategies. Advanced analysis of such data for extraction of actionable information often requires input from further sensors such as current and voltage sensors. For these sensor types, we focus on highly accurate, compact, and reliable sensor solutions as an enabler for advanced digital offerings.

 Autonomous Asset Management

The strong growth of renewables on the one hand and the advent of e-mobility on the other hand has profoundly impacted the distribution grid. An increasing bidirectional energy flow stresses the assets of the distribution grid. This calls for a so-called asset management system and improved maintenance strategies to prevent severe failures, to extend the lifetime and to increase operational safety of the critical assets.

ABB Research is supporting the business to cope with these challenges by developing an asset management system based on predictive maintenance. It relies on the continuous monitoring of relevant condition data of electrical assets, e.g. of thermal, mechanical, and electrical quantities. In our research projects we address innovative technological solutions for condition monitoring and data analytics.

Strong enablers of condition monitoring are given by advances in the sensor area, driven by low-cost sensors from mass market applications. Starting with understanding and simulating the underlying physical origins of equipment failure as well as aging, suitable sensing concepts get developed. At the end, a fully functional technology demonstrator of the sensing system is developed including packaging, sensor installation, electronics, means for communication and signal processing.

The decisive step regarding prediction of the health state of the devices is the analysis and interpretation of the available data. Here our research is twofold: we develop both, novel model-based algorithms and we take advantage of the enormous progress in data processing, especially in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

Moreover, the collected data from asset management is valuable input also for energy management within sites or, if combined several assets, in the distribution grid. The data is used to optimize and control the consumption along with the availability of renewable production and scheduling of loads in the most economic and ecological way.

The goal of our research is to establish an overall high autonomous level for assets, sites and grids while focusing on reliability and sustainability. Therefore, we combine our competences in AI, data analytics, modeling, and sensing.

Energy Management & Fleet Optimization

Climate change and increasing energy demand of growing and fast developing societies pose significant challenges today. While, as we already see, e.g., renewable energies like solar, wind, or green hydrogen are important cornerstones of energy generation, the management and operation of these generators and the respective fleets of loads (stationary and moving, e.g. trucks) must also be monitored, connected, scheduled and optimized to prevent oversizing and loss of productivity, and thus to reach sustainability targets and cost reduction.

Specifically looking at smart buildings, campuses, and cities there are huge potentials for energy savings and continuous energy management, as well as combining these with new business models such as decentralized, flexible markets. On the other hand, this will inadvertently increase the complexity of the overall system, which needs to be handled appropriately.

ABB research is tackling these challenges, for instance, by investigating the potentials of sector coupling in smart buildings and campuses, including optimizing local generation, storage, and consumption of energy while seamlessly integrating with energy grids. Such research combines competencies of various fields, such as smart sensing, data & system integration, optimization, and modern software architectures & connectivity, with our fundamental domain knowledge of building automation, smart grids, and sustainable electrification.

Smart Cities and Buildings

Buildings are a central part of our daily life. Just as the occupants having individual expectations on, e.g., room comfort, almost all buildings are unique – especially with respect to building automation functionality and electrification of the building. Considering sustainable and energy-efficient smart buildings, building automation and electrification will be much more integrated with energy markets and power grids. New devices and technologies like energy storage, renewable distributed energy generation, electric vehicle charging and advanced control algorithms allow buildings to become intelligent prosumers on electricity markets. Moreover, buildings can offer flexibility as a service to power grid operators or even become self-sustained micro or nano grids. Scaling these aspects even further would then also mean to think about smart campuses, communities, or cities.

The individuality of a smart building/campus/city causes a high complexity and, consequently, high lifecycle costs: An individual automation system is costly to plan, to engineer, to install, and to operate. Various available technologies, devices, vendors, applications, etc. typically have to be integrated with each other and aligned with the individual purposes and requirements. Setting up such a complex systems requires an efficient workflow through all lifecycle phases of a building, as stakeholders expect simpler interaction and increased autonomy of smart environments, as well as more comfort.

For the future, we expect smart automation systems being highly interconnected using various technologies, being flexible and customizable over lifetime, offering modular and open platforms, and easily integrating services. The buildings will be the central aggregator of digital information, which expands via interfacing of them to smart campuses and finally leads to smart cities. Advanced management systems are going to optimize energy flows and directly act on local markets. Hence, starting with smart buildings will be a central part of the energy transition.

Stakeholder demands are time efficiency, simplicity, and investment protection, as well as sustainability and energy efficiency in a fast-changing and attractive market. Therefore, key research topics in the area of automation towards smart city systems are integrated management, IoT connectivity, smart sensing, advanced electrification, energy management, grid services, seamless lifecycle support, as well as smart, safe, and sustainable autonomous systems based on machine learning and AI technologies as well as digital twin concepts.