Determining the market potential of agricultural energy management systems in Germany

The continuously increasing use of renewable energy sources and the associated reduction in the use of fossil fuels has become a key challenge for politics, science and society worldwide, but particularly in Germany. The transformation and a parallel increase in demand for primary energy is leading to changes on the energy market. Unlike nuclear energy, the generation of renewable energies (photovoltaics, wind power, biogas) is therefore decentralized. The regionalization of energy production is leading to problems with energy availability, distribution and grid stabilization and is therefore not only driving up the energy costs of private households and industry, but also posing additional economic challenges for the agricultural sector, especially energy-intensive livestock farming. This development offers the agricultural sector the opportunity to use the energy it generates itself, regardless of the production processes used, by operating photovoltaic systems on existing agricultural buildings or by utilizing the residues from livestock farming in biogas plants and supplying the surplus electricity directly to the public grid as a market participant. This opens another source of income in addition to the income from growing crops and marketing food by generating their own electricity. However, to be able to use the existing potential of in-house energy generation at all, intelligent electricity storage concepts and a corresponding energy management system are necessary to optimize internal production processes as well as to coordinate energy supply and demand in the electricity grid. Since 2013, the "Stable 4.0" research initiative of the Technical University of Munich and Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences has been working on a practice-oriented development of system-specific principles for the implementation of an on-farm energy management system (EMS). The current joint research project aims to investigate how the system can be used permanently and reliably with different operational and technical equipment. In cooperation with partners from the industry, an EMS for the agricultural sector, the only one of its kind in the world to date, was designed and has since been developed to market maturity on two pilot farms. As farms differ greatly from region to region, but also within their production processes, a varying usage and requirement profile for the system can be anticipated. It is therefore of interest to the project managers and developers to what extent the industrial prototype can be marketed supra-regionally and which internal value drivers prevail among agricultural users. Based on an online survey with 1,057 responses to the project study, it can be assumed that there is increased interest among practitioners in a customized EMS, which can also serve as the basis for a future marketing concept. The study shows that farmers are primarily interested in economic aspects, but that efficient self-consumption of electricity and the self-sufficiency rate are also particularly important. The study also contains useful information on innovations in the field of energy and provides information on future product positioning. The influence of various production processes was also considered in the survey. Initial findings already indicate multiple potential benefits from the use of the EMS and a clear added value for the entire spectrum in the agricultural sector.