The ENSURE Consortium is one of four “Kopernikus Projects for the Energy Transition”, funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research to combine economic, social, political and technological research questions for the sustainable and long‐term future development of energy systems. The KIT is a core partner in the project which includes in 15 further project partners, among which are RWTH Aachen, E.ON SE, TenneT TSO GmbH, Siemens AG, ABB and other partners. The project aims to answer questions raised by the energy transition such as: How much grid capacity is needed? Or: What is the optimal structure that satisfies technical, economic and social aspects and which degree of centralised and decentralised generation is appropriate? The project will cover three project phases with an overall time horizon of ten years. The first phase of the project is funded until 2019.

The Chair of Energy Economics at the IIP contributes to the research about future power network structures. The focus of the Chair’s work lies on economic aspects of future grid structures, namely the future market design (e.g. grid‐based price signals or investment incentives, regulatory framework for decentralised generation) and the repercussions on the grid, possible business models in the context of new grid structures and the techno‐economic assessment of scenarios for the future grid as well as the new technical concepts identified by the partners.