Europe and Austria are confronted with a rising risk of blackouts. The high costs of a blackout (billions of Euros) in connection with the non-economic damages require an in-depth consideration of the topic. Resilient supply-systems manage to minimise these costs.Today top-down approaches are chosen to handle blackouts, these approaches are suited for a centralised structure of the electricity supply system. Due to rising shares of decentralised and volatile energy supply sources, the electricity system is facing fundamental changes. These rising shares also affect the security of supply. In addition to today’s top-down approach for managing crisis, new complimentary approaches – as is the case for the underlying project featuring a cellular structure (“energy cell system”) – need to be developed. It is important to understand, that this approach doesn’t aim at replacing current structures of the centralised supply system, but much rather at enabling a failure-free integration to increase the resilience of the entire system.

Energiezelle F (energy cell F) creates a basis for a regional, autonomous and robust energy cell, in which failures in the transmission grid, caused by a blackout or a regional extreme weather conditions, to ensure a sufficient auxiliary (power) supply. A crucial part of the emergency infrastructure, which will be supplied with power, are “Kat-Leuchttürme” (catastrophe light towers). The Kat-Leuchttürme are specific buildings or institutions which have the means to provide or organise the support in the most urgent matters at disposal. The Kat-Leuchttürme in connection with other additional critical infrastructure as well as PVgeneration capacities (inducing battery storages) make up the Energiezelle F, which will act as fall-back solution. This fall-back solution will act as support for the grid restoration process in the superior grid levels as well as the national capacities to tackle catastrophes. An important factor is, that the general public won’t be treated as “in need of protection” but by using a transparent security communications concept will be integrated as active members into the crisis intervention and response as well the organisation of the energy cell itself. The project shows a very innovative character as it will implement a bottom-up approach as supplement for the existing top-down concept and will focus on the possibilities to integrate decentralised renewable energy sources into the emergency supply. Emphasis is set on the comprehensive participation for the development of pro-active competences und special consideration of groups of people who are in need of help. The superior targets of the project Energiezelle F are the development of:

• a resilient energy cell, which will support the grid restoration process, as well as a transparent security communications concept and a concept for “Kat-Leuchtürme” as
• a contact point for the population in case of a crisis. To ensure the widespread dissemination of the major findings the creation of a handbook on how to apply the results on other regions will be a part of Energiezelle F.

Project partner
Ing. Karl Puchas, MSc/ Lokale Energieagentur – LEA GmbH

Consortium
Stadtgemeinde Feldbach
Lokale Energieagentur – LEA GmbH
4ward Energy Research GmbH
Amt der Steiermärkischen Landesregierung
Landesamtsdirektion - Fachabteilung Katastrophenschutz und Landesverteidigung
Herbert Saurugg, Experte für die Vorbereitung auf den Ausfall lebenswichtiger Infrastrukturen (EPU)
Interdisziplinäres Forschungszentrum für Technik, Arbeit und Kultur (IFZ)

Contact
Lokale Energieagentur – LEA GmbH (Ing. Karl Puchas, MSc)
Auersbach 130, 8330 Feldbach

Telefon: 03152-8575-500
E-Mail: puchas@lea.at