Dr.-Ing. Thomas Luckenbach received his master degree (Dipl.-Inform.) and PhD in computer science from the Technical University of Berlin in 1981 and 1993 resp. From 1981 to 1989 he was with the Technical University of Berlin University as an assistant professor. In 1989 he joined GMD (Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung) which became part of Fraunhofer in 2001. After the merger of GMD with Fraunhofer Association he was responsible for the successful set-up and lead of several competence centers dealing with advanced IP technologies and new application areas like e.g. smart home networking, home automation and building management systems and car2car communication technologies.

His recent areas of work cover sensor networks, M2M communications, energy efficiency & smart buildings and especially the development of concepts and solutions for the realization of cyber-physical system like e.g. the future intelligent power network (Smart Grid). He participated in numerous national and European projects and was national representative in a European PPP project on Future Internet technologies in the area of utilities & environment (OUTSMART). Currently he is working in the area of decentralized energy networks and smart grid technologies. He is Executive Chairman of the industry alliance VHPready dealing with the development of an open industry standard for Virtual Power Plants.

The presentation will explain the Virtual Heat and Power standard (“VHPready”) and the protocol developments being specified and implemented by the industry alliance VHPready. It will introduce the organization itself and highlight the heterogeneity of its member companies and the related challenges in order to agree on a common industry standard for building and operating virtual power plants based on decentralized energy systems. Finally the role of virtual power plants related to smart grids, IoT and the german “Energiewende” will be addressed.