When the Washing Machine Communicates With the Electricity Station: Peer Energy Cloud Wins 'Trusted Cloud' Competition of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology

HANNOVER and BERLIN, Germany, March 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The partner consortium Peer Cloud, consisting of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), AGT Germany, SEEBURGER AG and the public utility company Saarlouis won the first prize in the "Trusted Cloud" technology competition presented by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. The award was announced today at the CeBIT fair in Hannover. The project, which is focused on the development of solutions for the intelligent distribution and usage of renewable energy, is set to take place over three years (2011-2014).

Private households consume about one third of the electricity produced by power stations, which is delivered over the national grid of 700 public utility companies whether to the doorbell or to the washing machine. The consumer knows when he wants to wash, when the dishwasher will run, but the public utility companies have never had a clue – until now. To date, the actual electric power consumption per consumer at a certain point in time has not been at all predictable to electricity generators. Standard load profiles are too imprecise. The load curve is hard to optimize. Thus, the national grid always has to be oriented towards the possibility of maximum loads, with back-up power stations ready as needed for overloads.

The aim of the "Peer Energy Cloud" consortium is the development of innovative recording and forecasting methods for the development of load curves to optimize the load flow, as well as the establishment of a virtual marketplace for power trading within the so-called "Micro Grids." This marketplace allows the balancing of energy demand and supply within the local grid, which in turn reduces stress on the nationwide grid. This bottom-up approach helps to increase the overall network stability and reduces the need for costly upgrades to the nationwide grid infrastructure.

"The automated derivation of activity profiles for individual households based on data from their energy consumption is a big challenge for the type of methods from the artificial intelligence sector that we develop at DFKI. This pioneering technology will only be accepted by the population if a comprehensive protection of individual's privacy is guaranteed by the processing of these profiles in a 'trusted cloud,'" explained Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster, CEO of DFKI.

Prof. Dr. Lutz Heuser, CEO of AGT Germany and CTO of AGT International, comments: "Winning the Trusted Cloud Computing technology award acknowledges that we are focusing on important trends and innovative technologies. This furthers AGT's commitment to provide integrated end-to-end solutions for the sustainable development of urban environments. Together with our esteemed partners we will now be working on the development of technologies for the intelligent distribution and usage of renewable energies."

"As a service provider for infrastructures, we are certain that together with the partners in the consortium and the collective know-how that these partners provide, this project will meet with success," says Dr.-Ing. Ralf Levacher, CEO of the public utility company Saarlouis. As an appliance partner, the public utility company Saarlouis will conduct a pilot in field trials with 500 households and evaluate the results.

Holger Kirchner, Executive Director of the research division of the SEEBURGER AG declares: "We are pleased to be part of this project and contribute as a provider of products and solutions to integrate business applications. Based on the approach of "B2B in the Cloud" of the THESEUS program, we can now build on our existing experience and skills and provide a new marketplace for peer-to-peer energy trading, which collects and distributes trusted data. We are convinced that this solution can be used in different market segments and bring new character to the market. "

"Information and communication technologies play a central role in the peer energy cloud. Thus, we will create a trustworthy environment for our project to master this challenge in a secure and reliable manner," concludes Prof. Dr. Wilfried Juling, Chief Science & Information Officer (CSO/CIO), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.  

"Trusted Cloud" Technology Competition

The Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology is supporting the development of innovative secure and legally compliant cloud computing services through the "trusted cloud" project with about 50 Million Euro. In addition the project is further supported by the resources of the parties involved so that about 100 Million Euro is available. The Federal Ministry's "trusted cloud" project is part of the action program "cloud computing", which was launched in October 2010 together with science and business partners. Within this program, different pilot projects develop and test innovative solutions for the secure application of cloud computing within different fields. The twelve winning projects are divided into the following clusters: basis technologies, industry, health and public sector. The peer energy cloud consortium represents the industry cluster.

About the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH):

Since its foundation in 1988, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, based in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrucken, Bremen and supplemented by a project office in Berlin, has become the world's leading research center in this field. The financial budget in 2010 was more than 36 million Euro. DFKI projects cover the whole spectrum from application-oriented basic research to market- and client-oriented design of product functions. Currently more than 400 employees from 46 countries are conducting research focusing on knowledge management, multi-agent technology, simulated reality, language technology, intelligent user interfaces, image understanding, pattern recognition, robotics, safe and secure cognitive systems, augmented vision and information systems. Impact: more than 50 professorships of former DFKI employees, and 57 spin-off companies with more than 1,300 highly qualified jobs.

For further information: www.dfki.de

About the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a public corporation and state institution of Baden-Württemberg. It fulfills the mission of a university and the mission of a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT pursues its tasks in the knowledge triangle of research, teaching, and innovation. For further information: http://www.kit.edu

About AGT International:

One of the fastest-growing security and public safety solutions organizations in the world, AGT has operations on five continents. Led by a unique vision, AGT combines the brain trust of its brightest minds globally with ahead-of-the-curve technology, to unlock the world's potential. AGT partners with governments and corporations to help them predict, prepare for, prevent, and manage challenges and threats that arise in complex environments – with services that include urban management, health emergency management, cyber and food security.  Founded 4 years ago by CEO Mati Kochavi, the AGT network of companies currently has 1,700 employees worldwide and sales in excess of $7 billion to date. AGT International is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.

Headquartered in Berlin, AGT Germany provides end-to-end integrated safety and security solutions for clients in the public and private sector with a focus on urban management and disaster-preparedness capabilities. In R&D operations in Darmstadt and Berlin, Germany serves as the hub of worldwide research and development activities within AGT International. For more information please visit www.agtgermany.com

About SEEBURGER AG:

SEEBURGER's objective is to seamlessly integrate external and internal processes – the interactions between different application systems or business partners – while eliminating media discontinuity.

The product portfolio covers the integration of B2B business processes, the integration of business partners, logistics/RFID solutions, the automated processing of paper-based documents, and end-to-end, independent consulting services for the introduction of product data management systems. The company's managed services include a SaaS B2B platform as well as traditional outsourcing services for B2B processes.

SEEBURGER has a long-standing partnership with SAP. More than 30 EDI adapters were developed in-house to enhance the integration platforms of SAP customers.

A range of additional services such as consulting and support allow SEEBURGER to complete its holistic approach.

Customers benefit from SEEBURGER's extensive industry expertise and experiences from more than 8,100 success stories at companies such as Beiersdorf, Bosch, Coop, Danfoss, EnBW, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, Hagebau, HP, Hyundai, Lidl, Novartis, Osram, Porsche, RWE, Siemens, S.Oliver, SupplyOn, Tetley, VW, Whirpool and many more. Founded 1986 in Bretten, Germany, SEEBURGER has offices in 19 countries worldwide. For more information go to http://www.seeburger.de/

SAARLOUIS STADTWERKE:

The public utility company Saarlouis has been a limited liability company (GmbH) since 1989 and employs approx. 80 employees. It provides some 38.000 inhabitants with electricity, natural gas and drinking water in the district town of Saarlouis which consists of eight city districts. Shareholders of the market are the Saarloius public utility company (51 per cent) and – since 01.01.2001 – the energis GmbH (49 per cent). Additionally, in the city district of Saarlousi-Steinrausch, Saarlouis has a share at the provision of district heating with fws Fernwarme Saarlouis-Steinrausch GmbH & Co. KG. For further information: http://www.swsls.de

SOURCE AGT International