Hannover Messe 2024: SmartLivingNEXT presented as a driver of the All Electric Society.

At the beginning of his presentation “Research for the All Electric Society” (AES), Schäfer explained the vision of the AES: a technological, social and political transformation towards an electrified, digitalized and sustainable future. In this context, he first posed the following questions: How does successful innovation work? What contributions can research make? And how can their success be measured? According to Schäfer, new technologically and economically attractive impetus must be provided above all in research-intensive areas such as digitalization, automation and intelligent networking. For a competitive and sustainable industry, digital ecosystems, multilateral data sharing and cross-manufacturer interoperability of the solutions used are particularly important success factors. There is currently still a great need for action on these topics – not least among small and medium-sized companies – and many people are afraid to get involved. However, the good news is that current innovation partnerships and research projects are already providing important guidance and pioneering contributions.

On the stage of the AES Arena, Schäfer provided concrete examples of projects and networks involving the ZVEI’s Electrical Engineering Research Association that are working to realize the vision of the All Electric Society: In addition to SmartLivingNEXT, these were the smart living communities ForeSight and SECAI as well as the Industry 4.0 communities Antrieb 4.0 and Manufacturing-X.

SmartLivingNEXT: Pioneering collaborative research in the smart living domain

Schäfer explained SmartLivingNEXT’s pioneering role in the smart living domain by saying that the first manufacturer-independent, sovereign and trustworthy ecosystem for digital smart living services is being developed here. This is urgently needed to create a secure access point to all relevant data in apartments or residential buildings. In future, scalable solutions could be offered in key areas of activity in the building sector – such as energy efficiency, assistance, building security and maintenance – which would benefit not only manufacturers and operators, but also landlords and tenants. The contribution of the technology program for energy data transparency and AI in buildings funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) is also already apparent. For example, important milestones for the “energy efficiency” use case in the SmartLivingNEXT flagship project were already achieved at an early stage of the project, including the successful implementation of the SmartLivingNEXT Dataspace and the real-time use of energy data.

The presentation at the Hannover Messe provided an insight into current trends and developments relating to digital transformation, backed up with many examples. Above all, however, it was a plea for innovation partnerships and joint research as a strong basis for greater competitiveness, sustainability and resilience in industry and society.