Digital Energy Systems

Content

This lecture equips students with a deep understanding of the digitally-enabled coordination mechanisms that underpin the modern energy transition. As energy systems become increasingly decentralized, digital technology emerges as a central pillar connecting the behavior of market participants, governmental regulation, and energy infrastructure. Students will explore how these three dimensions interact and how digital tools shape and moderate their relationships. The course covers a broad range of topics including smart meters, digital platforms, market communication protocols, household energy applications, automated short-term electricity trading, aggregation of flexible loads, technology-based regulation, reinforcement learning for market analysis, and digital tools in grid operation such as grid state estimation. Methodologically, the course engages with simulation approaches to model and analyze complex energy system dynamics. A distinctive feature of the lecture is its strong industry orientation: sessions are regularly split between an academic component and a practical component, with extensive contributions from industry experts. By the end of the course, students will have both the theoretical grounding and applied perspective needed to navigate and contribute to the digital transformation of energy systems.