Energy Meets Intelligence: German STORE Partners THI and Steinbacher-Consult Meet in Dialogue

On June 5, 2025, the team from the Institute of New Energy Systems (InES) at the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (THI) visited the company Steinbacher-Consult Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG in Neusäß as part of the STORE project. Steinbacher-Consult is an innovative engineering consulting firm, with one of its key focus areas in energy and electromobility. The goal of the project is to develop an AI-supported Smart Flexibility Energy Manager (SFEM) to intelligently control energy flows in the supermarkets of the future – envisioned as hubs for electromobility, equipped with charging infrastructure and their own energy generation.

The visit began with a tour of the existing charging infrastructure at Steinbacher-Consult. This infrastructure is divided into four zones, covering a broad range of charging scenarios: a public charging park with five DC fast charging stations, a private underground parking garage with twelve DC and three standard AC charging points, an employee parking lot with twelve AC charging points, and garages for pool vehicles with seven additional AC charging points. This versatile setup provides an ideal foundation for the development and testing of future-oriented control approaches.

Following the tour, Steinbacher-Consult presented their intelligent energy management and monitoring system. This system enables comprehensive real-time monitoring and control of the entire energy flow. It allows for live tracking of the current load on charging points, charging performance, and the feed-in from the company's own photovoltaic system. In the event of an impending overload of the grid connection, an automated load management system intervenes to selectively control individual charging processes, thereby ensuring a stable power supply.

During the subsequent technical exchange, participants engaged in an in-depth discussion of the current state of charging infrastructure and jointly developed initial ideas for future scenarios in planning and modeling charging and energy management systems. Another focus of the conversation was the concrete planning of the next project steps, both in terms of hardware integration and software implementation of the SFEM. It became clear that the combination of practical experience provided by Steinbacher-Consult and the scientific expertise of the academic project partners is crucial to the project’s success.

The visit to Neusäß marked an important milestone in the STORE project. With the planned Smart Flexibility Energy Manager, the goal is to create a system that not only operates efficiently but can also respond flexibly to changing demands – a key building block for a sustainable, smart, and mobility-oriented energy future.

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