Vermaschte Energienetze Basic

For more than a century, the industrial society’s energy supply was organized according to a clear principle: electricity flows in one direction. Large power plants, initially coal-fired, later nuclear and gas-fired, fed their energy into high-voltage grids, which transmitted it in stages via substations to the end consumer.

This model worked reliably for decades, but the energy transition is fundamentally challenging it. Photovoltaic systems on rooftops, wind farms in rural areas and offshore, combined heat and power plants in residential buildings, and battery storage in basements have dissolved the traditional division of roles. Today, nearly every grid connection is potentially also a feed-in point. Electricity no longer flows from top to bottom, it flows in all directions simultaneously.
To cope with this reality, grid planning and grid operation have undergone fundamental changes. The keyword is: meshed grid.

A meshed grid is an electrical grid in which more than one current path exists between any two nodes. Unlike a radial grid, which branches out like a tree from a root to the leaves, and unlike a ring grid, which forms a single closed loop, the meshed grid has a multitude of connections and cross-connections. Topologically speaking, this creates a graph with meshes, closed loops, that give the grid its characteristic properties.

Main components: