To mitigate climate change the expansion of renewable energy sources have been increased over the past decades. However, as the share of renewable energy in the energy mix increases, so does the volatility of energy supply. This volatility must be balanced either through controllable, typically fossil-based energy sources or energy storage solutions. Another approach lies in the flexibilization of energy demand. While private consumers contribute to demand-side flexibility through smart home technologies, energy storage, and flexible electricity tariffs, such practices are not as prevalent in the manufacturing industry. This gap constitutes an energy transformation for companies. Current methods do not address both production and energy perspectives and consequently do not satisfy the need for decision support regarding this energy transformation.
To address the overarching research question of how the manufacturing industry can be supported to achieve efficient, flexible and sustainable energy usage in unison with production system goals, a procedure model was developed. This model incorporates internal and external factors as well as established methods and technologies to support decisions regarding optimized system design and operation, which finally changes the actual production and energy system. The relevant steps in this proposed procedure model start with a system analysis which results general condition and requirements of the brown field manufacturing system. Next, based upon these requirements, a configuration process is proposed, leveraging technologies like simulation and optimization. Finally, the configured system feeds into a phase of change management and implementation. Aside from these process steps existent isolated methodologies and technologies like factory planning or energy consulting are adapted and combined to build coherent tools, which can be implemented within the transformation agent.