Case Study: Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg achieves 50%+ reduction in renewable curtailments and sub-second grid optimization with MathWorks (MATLAB)

Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg Optimizes Power Grid as Renewable Energy Sources Come Online

Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg needed to optimize power flow and energy production across a complex European transmission system—3,400 power plants, 10,000 substations, and 25,000 pieces of equipment—because growing renewable generation made manual control increasingly impractical. The university turned to MathWorks tools, principally MATLAB with Optimization Toolbox, Global Optimization Toolbox, Parallel Computing Toolbox, and Mapping Toolbox, to build a complete, research- and teaching-ready model of the grid and develop automated control algorithms.

Using MathWorks’ MATLAB, the team modeled component behavior, merged element equations into a full-grid simulation, created a Java interface to industry control software, and ran parallelized power-flow calculations in under one second. The MathWorks-based solution automated remedial actions with Optimization and Global Optimization Toolboxes, cut renewable-energy curtailments by more than 50% (from 1.5 GW to 0.6 GW), produced sub-second grid calculations, and shortened students’ learning curves through integrated modeling and visualization.

Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg

Martin Wolter

Professor