Walenstadt is a very important place for our project: it is the birthplace of Grid2050, the site of our first investigations and our first test community. The municipality of this small lakeside town in St Gallen, already home to innovative power facilities from abundant natural resources, approached the NCCR Automation to help them develop their energy resilience. This became an ideal testbed for us to explore future energy solutions in a contained setting that includes household prosumers and essential infrastructure such as a hospital, as well as forward-looking utilities providers who are eager to participate in shaping the future. 

With its three run-of-the-river hydroelectric power plants, rooftop photovoltaic (PV) power plants, large storage systems (three 4MW, 4MWh batteries), and around 5,000 households, Walenstadt is an ideal location to study the problems and opportunities arising from the large-scale integration of PV generation. The testbed (expected to be up and running by the end of 2025) will boast a scalable communications architecture that connects all network assets to a centralised platform, enabling flexible load management and energy storage for DSOs.  

Core features of this testbed will include:  

• Vendor-neutral software interface: Enabling communication between devices with different protocols, and facilitating remote monitoring and data collection.   
• Centralised control platform: Located in the utility’s control room, it collects network-wide data and applies smart grid optimisation algorithms. The generated control signals are sent to grid components like generation units, controllable loads, storage systems and flexible customers, reducing grid operation costs, peak loads and congestion while improving voltage stability.  
• Integrated energy community: The testbed also integrates a pilot energy community of prosuming households – e.g., those with PV systems, electric vehicle chargers and heat pumps – each of which is equipped with an energy management device. These devices communicate with the DSO, allowing prosumers to respond to grid signals to the benefit of the overlying electricity grid, without complex tariff structures. 

The Walenstadt project marks the first time that development and testing of such a network is conducted not on a small test bench, but at the municipal level.