OpenPlan 2.0

Project period

September 2024 until August 2027

Project management

DGS - LV Berlin Brandenburg e.V.

Funding organisations

Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection

Project description

The OpenPlan 2.0 project builds on the success of the open_plan 1.0 project, in which the open and free OpenPlan tool was developed. The Berlin Brandenburg regional association of the German Solar Energy Society (DGS) is working together with the Fraunhofer IFAM and the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) to further establish this tool and optimise it in practice. The focus is on the application of the tool in municipal heat planning in order to support a sustainable and efficient energy supply at local level.

The OpenPlan tool

You can access the OpenPlan tool via the following link: https://open-plan.rl-institut.de/de/. With the OpenPlan tool, supply models for the electricity and heating requirements of neighbourhoods, commercial premises and industry can be created and optimised from a technical and economic perspective in a graphically intuitive user interface. The results of the optimisation are presented in a clear and comprehensible way, and different scenarios can be compared with each other in a clear manner. This gives users from the non-scientific sector access to the methods of energy system analysis and supports concrete planning of energy supply systems in practice. In the OpenPlan 2.0 project, the OpenPlan tool is to be used with selected practice partners for specific planning tasks with the aim of establishing the tool in practice. The framework of municipal heat planning with complex problems for energy system planning serves this purpose. 

According to the Heat Planning Act, heat plans must be drawn up for all municipalities in Germany by the end of June 2028. A major challenge will then be the implementation of these heat plans, which is not yet mandatory. However, compliance with the measures must be monitored and measures must be developed further on a regular basis. At best, municipal heat plans are transferred into comprehensive municipal energy planning. The aim of the OpenPlan 2.0 project is to bring the OpenPlan tool so far into practice that it can be used to support this process and can also be used to answer other complex questions relating to energy system planning. 

An important part of the project is the continuous dialogue with various stakeholders such as local authorities, planning offices, energy agencies and energy supply companies. This dialogue has already proven to be extremely valuable in the open_plan 1.0 project and will be continued in OpenPlan 2.0. 

What is the project objective?

The overarching and common goal of all project partners in the OpenPlan 2.0 project is to expand the OpenPlan tool for use in municipal heat planning and at the same time to extend its general applicability to more extensive and complex energy systems. The intuitive usability of the tool is to be retained and, where necessary, functionalities are to be added. Please visit the project website for further information on the OpenPlan 2.0 project: https://open-plan-tool.org/de/  

We also offer training courses on how to use the Openplan tool: