Dr. Schüppel presents the Lausitz reference power plant (RefLau)

On June 1^st, 2023, Dr Ben Schüppel, Managing Director of Referenzkraftwerk Lausitz GmbH, was a guest at the Boysen-TU Dresden Research Training Group. In his lecture, he presented the project "Reference Power Plant Lausitz" (RefLau). At the site in the Schwarze Pumpe industrial park near the city of Spremberg, Brandenburg, an innovative power plant concept is being implemented that exclusively uses renewable energies to demonstrate the possibilities of sector coupling. Within the framework of the project, 80 MW of wind power, 20 MW of photovoltaics, and a PEM electrolyzer of around 10 MW are to be installed. In his talk, Dr. Ben Schüppel not only presented the technical concept of RefLau, but also went into detail about the planned power supply concept and the planned EEG marketing. In his outlook, the upcoming project steps were explained.

In the run-up, there were some unanswered questions:

• Which energy sources will be used in the technical concept and what installed capacities are available?
• What kind of energy is converted and how is it used by Powertracks?
• Which storage technologies, distribution systems, and system services are included in the concept?
• What expectations do citizens have of the companies in terms of acceptance and citizen participation, and what experience has been gained from past projects in terms of acceptance and citizen participation (keyword: lessons learned)?
• How are sustainability and social sciences integrated into the concept, especially with regard to regional development?
• What research approaches are being pursued in the field of transformation research?

In the subsequent exchange, these and other questions were discussed in detail. In particular, technical aspects such as the choice of electrolysis technology, the black start capability of the power generation plant, and the technical evaluation regarding tubular storage facilities were intensively addressed.

The presentation aroused the interest of the professors and the doctoral students with regard to possible cooperation and mutual transfer of results. We would like to thank Dr. Ben Schüppel for his insights into the RefLau approach and wish him and the project many more successes in the future!

Further information on the project can be found at https://www.reflau.com/.
 

© https://www.reflau.com/projekt