The energy sector is amid a huge transformation that will impact the entire world and grid operators need new innovations to match those needs.
That’s why we’re especially excited to see the recognition awarded Antonello Monti, Director of the Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems at RWTH Aachen University and group Leader at Center for Digital Energy, Fraunhofer FIT, for his leadership with SOGNO, the “Service-based Open-source Grid automation platform for Network Operation” of the future.
Monti received the second most prestigious award given by the German government, the innovation prize of North Rhine-Westphalia. Awarded annually, this prize recognizes outstanding achievements and excellent research.
We are so proud of the work Monti, who also serves at the Technical Advisory Committee Chair for LF Energy, and Markus Mirz have undertaken. We also want to extend our congratulations to the many individuals, companies, and the European Commission who funded the original work for SOGNO (meaning “dream” in Italian).
SOGNO is an LF Energy project that is creating plug-and-play, cloud-native, micro-services to implement our next generation of data-driven monitoring and control systems. It will simplify the life of distribution utilities by enabling them to optimize their network operations through open source to deliver cost-effectively, and seamless, secure power to customers.
A breakthrough innovation is that SOGNO introduces the idea of grid automation as a modular system in which components can be added through time. This is in opposition to classical monolithic solutions, which weren’t constructed with today’s energy landscape in mind.
Today, as more renewables come onto the grid, the flow of energy moves from just one way, which was true in the past, to both ways on and off the grid.In the future, power system networks will be composed of assets whose profiles may shift between loads, resources, and the ability to provide flexibility back to the grid.
Reinforcing the current system is not sufficient to deal with the increasing complexity of distribution systems. Rather, we are at the cusp of needing deployment of advanced distribution management systems that can be implemented as centralized but even better as distributed architecture.
We reiterate our deep gratitude and support for this project, and the people and entities who’re making it happen.
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