The Kopernikus Project SynErgie III supports German industry in adapting its production processes flexibly to the availability of renewable energies. The aim is to make the energy supply more cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable, while not only optimizing energy costs but also actively involving industry in the energy transition.
In times of high and volatile energy prices, the ability to adapt production flexibly and cost-efficiently is becoming increasingly important. In concircle’s work package, the focus lies on energy-flexible production planning. Various measures are combined to enable factories to make holistic use of flexible energy deployment. The results were demonstrated in the ETA Factory at the Technical University of Darmstadt – an energy-efficient research factory that tests state-of-the-art systems and processes.
concircle’s involvement in SynErgie III aims to advance sustainability goals and support the implementation of energy flexibility in production planning and control in order to respond to the evolving energy landscape.
Practical Example: Manufacturing of Control Discs
In a production line with five machines and seven processing steps, orders are scheduled in a way that allows them to respond to fluctuating electricity prices. Our detailed planning tool conOperationScheduling (conOS), combined with a Python-based optimizer, enables production schedules to be optimized directly within SAP ERP. In the second phase, the use and integration of AI (OpenAI) is being tested, which is expected to deliver significantly improved results.
In addition, contractually defined power limits are considered in production planning:
- Hard thresholds may not be exceeded and therefore form binding constraints within the optimization model.
- Soft thresholds may be exceeded but result in penalty costs for the manufacturer.
Thanks to the successful implementation of the SAP Digital Manufacturing (SAP DM) platform, the optimized production orders can then be transferred directly to the PODs on the shop floor. By implementing SAP DM in a real production environment, the measures for energy flexibility are practically demonstrated in the ETA Factory at TU Darmstadt – an energy-efficient research factory testing cutting-edge systems and processes. As a result, cost savings in the Day-Ahead market (electricity prices set one day in advance) of 54% (test 1) and 75% (test 2) compared to the original backward scheduling were achieved over two test days.
With projects like SynErgie III, concircle is closely connected to both research and practice, and can jointly test various scenarios with universities and industry partners. This ensures that concircle always remains at the cutting edge for its customers, bringing direct feedback from research and developing practical solutions that enable companies to prepare for new requirements in good time.
