M.Sc. Martin Pietsch

Distribution Grid Restoration
+49 (0) 6151 16-21719
fax +49 (0) 6151 16-21712
S3|10 310
Landgraf-Georg-Str. 4
64283 Darmstadt
Research Interest
General Research Interest:
- Distribution Grid Restoration
- Optimisation of Grid Restoration Sequences
- Resilience enhancement and
- Post disaster measures
Research Project:
Even though the german electricity grid has been highly reliable for years, the supply risks are increasing. While extreme weather events present growing physical threats to the grids infrastructure, the electricity grids rising degree of digitalisation and decentralised renewable energies pose both, risks and chances for electricity supply. Grid overloads, due to excess supply of renewable power production and hacker attacks on digitalised power plant- and grid-control show real risks to supply reliability. At the same time, decentralised electricity generation from renewable energies and smart digitalised grid- and power plant-operations make a valuable contribution to the energy transition and offer new opportunities to improve the resilience of the electricity supply in crisis situations.
These possibilities are investigated within the program cyber-pyhsical systems (CPS1) of the emergenCITYcenter, funded by the LOEWE initiative (Hesse, Germany). Based on the digital city of the future, we tackle the questions on how to maintain its functionalities even in extreme situations, crises and disasters and to increase the reliability of its critical infrastructure in the digital context. Considering the interdependencies of energy, communication and water infrastructure we formulate optimisation problems as mixed integer linear programs to find optimal switching sequences of digitalised grid components.
Open theses
Supervisor: Martin Pietsch
Earliest start: immediately
Type: Bachelor Thesis
emergenCITY aims at investigating fundamentals, methods and solutions towards the resilience of future digital cities. This includes the development of practical solutions for new requirements in crisis scenarios. In this context, we at the Mission eHUB are working on local solutions for resilience increase through decentralized energy islands. In order to mitigate the impact of crises, such as a prolonged power outage, the eHUB should be able to offer charging possibilities to the neighborhood/district.
Within the scope of this work, you will develop and construct a smart charging station. The focus should be on simultaneously providing power to as many people as possible and implementing different charging strategies. The charging strategies should, for example, distinguish between fast charging and partial charging in order to be able to react according to the circumstances of the crisis or the power availability of the eHUB.
A 3D printer is available for the construction. The design should be adapted to previous developments.

Short Bio
Since 2019: PhD student at EINS
2017-2019 M.Sc. Energy Engineering at RWTH Aachen
Field of specialisation: Renewable Energies2011-2017 B.Sc Mechanical Engineering at RWTH Aachen:
Field of specialisation: Energy Engineering
Publications
[Journal]
Michèle Knodt; Anna Stöckl; Martin Pietsch; Florian Steinke; Gerrit Hornung; Jan-Philipp Stroscher :
Power blackout: Citizens’ contribution to strengthen local resilience.
In: Elsevier Energy Policy 174 , P. 113433, 2023
[Conference]
Michael Heise; Martin Pietsch; Florian Steinke; Maximilian Bauer; Burak Yilmaz :
Optimized UAV Placement for Resilient Crisis Communication and Power Grid Restoration.
In: IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Europe (ISGT Europe), Novi Sad, Serbia, 2022
[Conference]
John Friesen; Martin Pietsch :
Slums in Smart Cities - Rethink the Standard.
In: IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2022), Santa Clara, USA, 2022
[Journal]
Martin Pietsch; Florian Steinke :
The Water Energy Nexus: Improved Emergency Grid Restoration with DERs.
In: Elsevier ScienceDirect Electric Power Systems Research (Proc. 22nd Power Systems Computation Conference, PSCC) 212 , P. 108468, 2022
[Conference]
Michaela Lestakova; Kevin Logan; Imke Lorenz; Martin Pietsch; John Friesen; Florian Steinke; Peter F. Pelz :
Towards a Common Ontology for Investigating Resilience of Interdependent Urban Systems.
In: Proceedings of the Joint International Resilience Conference, JIRC2020, 23.11.2020-27.11.2020, Online Event, Twente, 2020
[Conference]
Martin Pietsch; Anja Klein; Florian Steinke :
Merging Microgrids for Optimal Distribution Grid Restoration under Explicit Communication Constraints.
In: 2020 Resilience Week (RWS), virtual Conference, 2020