Cellular energy systems represent a new form of organization in energy technology that attempts to create a balance between energy supply and demand at a local level. The focus here is on generating as many regional energy products as possible in the form of heat, electricity and gas. The submitted paper describes the analysis of the cellular approach using the example of a small German town.
Especially in suburban areas, there is either no or only limited data available, a special methodology is used to analyze the energy demand situation. This is based on freely available data, which is aggregated in a geoinformation system with the potential influencing factors for each building and visualized in a so-called energy atlas. Taking into account population forecasts, the associated vacancy rate and the current renovation rate, future energy requirements are forecasted up to the year 2050. Based on the results, technological developments such as the expansion of photovoltaics, storage systems, heat pumps, etc. are also simulated. The energy demand values and the technological developments are simulated stochastically, taking into account various criteria and factors. The evaluation of ensembles allows statistically robust results to be obtained. This enables a well-founded analysis of the transformation to a cellular energy system and supports future decision-making processes. The aim of the methodology presented in this article is to support the transformation of energy technology towards renewable energies with a simple and scalable model tool kit.