The increasing electrification of the energy sector requires innovative approaches for the integration and control of decentralised energy consumers and producers. In addition, the increasing prevalence of dynamic electricity tariffs and, in future, variable grid charges offer further incentives for intelligent energy management. An analysis of existing solutions and studies with homeowners by RAZO has revealed three key challenges:

• Wasted potential in the utilisation of flexibilities: components often cannot be intelligently networked and controlled by the manufacturer's own software as stated by the manufacturer.
• Lack of user-friendliness: Existing solutions often still require daily manual input, for example from which source electricity is to be drawn (from the power grid or from your own solar system) or by when the electric car should be fully charged for the next journey, as there is no intelligent departure time prediction.
• Lack of optimisation in energy use: Although there are manufacturer-dependent stand-alone solutions for smart charging and smart heating, there is no sensible combination of electricity price-based charging, PV surplus charging and smart heating.

The RAZO Energy project addresses these challenges by developing an advanced energy management system (EMS) that optimises energy consumption in households.

A central component of this approach is the development of various forecasting models. Machine learning models are used to create precise forecasts for the departure times of electric vehicles, the surplus of solar energy and the energy requirements of heat pumps.

These forecasts are combined with live measurement values from the system and build the foundation for an optimisation model that controls energy consumption in real time. On the one hand, homeowners can significantly reduce their energy costs and increase their self-sufficiency by shifting electricity consumption to favourable periods and optimising the use of their PV surplus. On the other hand, the electricity grid is relieved and stabilised, as the risk of overloading increases with the growing number of electric vehicles and heat pumps.

In the future, users will also be able to benefit from new incentives, such as compensation based on Section 14a of the Energy Industry Act and the introduction of variable grid charges. In addition, topics such as V2G or V2H are becoming increasingly relevant due to the increasing market maturity and distribution of bidirectional wallboxes and electric cars and will also be supported by RAZO in intelligent control in the future. RAZO also connects and monitors the end users' various systems in the cloud and enables virtual power plant use cases through the combination of several households. The software architecture of the RAZO control system is so flexible that our EMS can work from local optimisation for the end customer to grid-serving optimisation.

RAZO Energy thus offers an innovative solution for overcoming the challenges of our energy transition: With the easily accessible app, the intelligent EMS and the combination of different use cases, the project lays the foundation for a sustainable and future-orientated energy infrastructure. The project “RAZO Energy – Intelligent EMS solution using AI with a focus on automated smart charging and smart heating” is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) as part of the EXIST start-up grant.