Control Room of the Future
A brighter energy future for everyone. That's the purpose of TenneT. Our operators ensure that the energy balance in our electricity grid is maintained 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. This keeps the lights on for everyone. Our control rooms are therefore the beating heart of the energy supply in the Netherlands and Germany.
Watch the Control Room of the Future animation
TenneT: at the heart of Europe's energy transition
The transition to a decarbonised energy economy is one of the great challenges of the modern age.
TenneT is at the heart of this energy transition in Europe. It is our responsibility to integrate vast and variable resources of renewable energy into the grid and transport it to end users. And to keep our grid stable and reliable at the same time.
This is no easy task and demands a lot from our operators and our systems. To drive the energy transition while maintaining high level of grid reliability, TenneT needs to make use of the latest technological advances and adapt its grid operational procedures. As part of this transformation, we need to modernise the heart of our power system – the Control Room – to make it fit for the future.
What will the Control Room look like in the future?
Today, many switches in our network can and are still done manually.
Take a look at this page to see how our control centres work. Here you can experience in simplified form what the work of an operator entails. The Control Room of the Future, with the operator at its heart, combines the best of human and computer intelligence. Our skilled and valued operators will be supported with state-of-the-art instruments and technology. An innovative visualisation dashboard will give operators a comprehensive performance oversight of the whole power system, down to individual network components. This will enable the grid to be utilised to its maximum capacity, safely and securely. An intuitive human-machine interface will allow fast response by operators while preventing human errors. Our well-trained and experienced operators are thus able to manage the electricity system proactively, in real-time and in seamless coordination with TenneT's pan-European stakeholders.
What does it mean to work in the Control Room of the Future?
To improve accuracy and quality of decisions, the control room processes will be standardised, optimised and partly automated. The tools will provide an early warning of potential issues in the linked systems and automatically prompt remedial options to the operator. These actions can be performed manually or deployed automatically. In this way, the operator will supervise the automated system and intervene and override the automation with manual control when needed. All this will help us improve the efficiency, reliability, security and resilience of our power system.
Working together for development
As the Control Room of the Future is at the leading edge of technology in the ongoing energy transition, we also see it being a rich learning environment, combining the expertise of our subject-matter-experts with the latest insights from our partners, including suppliers and universities. Experts will share knowledge, expand their horizons and collaborate on the technical advances we need to drive the energy transition.
First steps
TenneT's first step in creating the Control Room of the Future is to replace the current EMS/SCADA system. This stands for Energy Management System/Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. Together with our supplier, a new EMS/SCADA system is being developed that offers the possibility of adding new requirements in the future.
In addition, a 'Research and Development Roadmap' has been drawn up for the next 10 years. In this Roadmap, the various requirements that will give further substance to the Control Room of the Future have been identified. TenneT is keen to get in touch with research institutes, technology companies, grid managers and other interested parties who can help us develop the Control Room of the Future. Together we must take the energy transition further.
Current ongoing activities on the framework of this Roadmap are:
- Forecasting (weather, Renewable Energy Sources – generation, load, Dynamic Line Rating)
- Online inertia estimation and forecasting
- Dynamic Security Assessment including decision support
- Optimal congestion management (redispatch, utilisation of grid flexibility, grid topology reconfiguration, control of active network components)
Are these topics also important to your company or organisation and might we be able to strengthen each other? We would like to get in touch with you. Mail your details to crof@tennet.eu
Enabling the energy transition
Today and in the years and decades ahead, the decisions we take to invest in our power system and prepare it for the challenges of the future will play a vital role in setting the pace of the energy transition. Our Control Room of the Future will be at the very centre of a decarbonised and sustainable energy system that society can depend on.