On the path to climate neutrality, renewable energies play a key role in the supply of electricity and heat. Since their production is weather-dependent and therefore not constant, but supply and demand must be in balance, effective storage and networks are essential. Energy demand and production curves often coincide; However, a fully sustainable energy supply can only be achieved if demand and use are brought into line via network distribution and excess energy is intelligently stored for a later date.

Smart grids are intelligent networks that use various technologies and collected data to coordinate energy production, distribution and storage in real time. The challenges lie in upgrading old networks, monitoring load flow dynamics and ensuring data security.

The heterogeneous, small-scale heat market is also required to collect and store sometimes volatile offers of heat and waste heat from a wide variety of sources, to coordinate supply and demand and to guarantee security of supply. Companies in the industry are working to create a smart connection between physical storage and network infrastructure as well as IT hardware, software and the actors involved. The core is the development of the appropriate infrastructure, both in the electricity storage and electricity networks as well as in the local and district heating networks.

The industry includes, for example, electricity storage, transmission and distribution, charging station infrastructure, gas storage and distribution, among other things through pipelines.