The Gas- und Wärme-Institut Essen e.V. (GWI) has been well known since more than 80 years as a recognized non-profit research organization with a reputation reaching far beyond its home region of North Rhine-Westphalia. To its member companies belong enterprises such as municipal utilities, gas suppliers, equipment manufacturers and transport and trade associations. In the R&D departments Industrial Combustion Technology and Fuel and Appliance Technology application-oriented research and development projects are carried out. The accredited testing laboratory is one of the largest and most important in the gas industry in Germany. The Training and Education Center conveys its practitioners in gas-related seminars and training courses technical safety and new developments for practical usage.
Gas in the Future Energy System: GWI deals with the energy topics considering gas technologies for public gas supply applications. These are natural gas gained from different supply sources and regenerative generated gases (biogas, hydrogen, SNG) and LNG. Together with its company members and customers GWI works on sustainability of the energy sector in a rapidly changing field.
Today, many topics are considered from the perspective of decarbonisation, energy efficiency, integrated energy and supply security. A complex view of the overall system in order to integrate all resources considering the economic and ecological factors plays a central role.
Complexity of topics and issues requires interdisciplinary approaches and methods. To reach this, GWI disposes of well-qualified and highly motivated employees as well as powerful technology and excellent laboratory and infrastructure.
Research and development are a basis for innovation, testing and final certification which is an instrument for the market entry. Occupational training and audits complete the portfolio.
Impulses for Innovations: With its Research and Development Departments, Testing Laboratory and Training and Education Center, GWI sets impulses for innovation in the energy sector. The research focuses on the topics Hydrogen, Integrated Energy, Power-to-X, CHP, Digitalization, LNG and BigData. They extend from the domestic level over trade and service sector up to the large industry scale.
Cross-system considerations of the energy efficiency as well as development of highly flexible and low-emission appliance technologies became the focus of interest under the influence of the political and legal regulations.
Research: The current projects concentrate on the coupled energy network and their dynamical interactions, which are simulated, analyzed and further developed by self-developed models. Developed models and contents will be available to the public as open source. The progressive digitalization in the energy sector enables coupling of the systems and sectors. The digitalization of energy infrastructures is addressed by building a Living Lab to answer highly topical research questions. The Living Lab is constantly expanded to build a platform for research projects in which the coupling of the power, gas and heat sectors can be demonstrated and investigated.
Individual units are able to use informational and communicational infrastructures that also enable to use modern approaches of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The gained knowledge will be used for GWI’s GIS-Model EstaTe, which contains a spatial high-resolution description of the settlement, network and technology structure of Germany.
Demonstration: As part of the „Virtual Institute Electricity to Gas and Heat“, a PtX demonstration centre was built at the GWI, consisting of a PEM electrolyser, catalytic methanation, power-to-heat plant and CHP system.
Contact
Gas- und Wärme-Institut Essen e.V.
Hafenstraße 101 | 45356 Essen
Telefon: 0201 3618-0
info@gwi-essen.de