Energy hubs for the future

Several facilities have investigated the future scenarios of the energy infrastructures by solving different issues such as the continuously growing demand for energy, the dependency on limited fossil energy resources, and the restructuring of power industries. The consideration of multiple energy carriers represents one of the key characteristics of the 'Vision of Future Energy Networks' project. The project team found that only a few established tools were available for the integrated analysis of multiple energy carrier systems. They focused in a first phase on developing a modeling and analysis framework. The project is an energy hub, which is considered a unit where multiple energy carriers can be converted, conditioned, and stored. The energy hub concept enables new design approaches for multiple energy carrier systems. Future work includes the development of dynamic modeling and analysis tools, and the control of a system of interconnected energy hubs.