The Technical University (TU) Dortmund and the Ruhr University Bochum are receiving a new Collaborative Research Center/Transregio. The German Research Foundation (DFG) announced this on Friday, May 31, 2024. In the newly approved Transregio (TRR) 391 “Spatio-temporal Statistics for the Transition of Energy and Transport”, the two universities and other partners will develop statistical methodologies to model and forecast data on the energy and mobility transition. The DFG is funding TRR 391 with around 10 million euros for four years.
Digitalization makes more and more data available
In order to achieve the climate goals, the use of fossil fuels must be reduced, both in the generation of electricity and heat as well as in transport. In order for measures to reduce CO2 emissions to be widely accepted by the population, the positive aspects must outweigh possible negative effects - for example on employment, mobility or prosperity. Therefore, political decisions should, where possible, be made on the basis of solid empirical evidence and their impact on people's everyday lives and on the entire economy should be accurately assessed.
This is where the new large-scale research project comes in: Thanks to increasing digitalization, more and more data is available, which is automatically collected in different places and at different times. In order to derive relevant and reliable predictions for the energy and transport sector, the scientists involved will develop innovative statistical methods for such spatial-temporal data and use them to analyze them. “With the new methods and the data obtained, we will be able to forecast energy loads and network disruptions more accurately, for example, but will also contribute to a better understanding of individual energy consumption and mobility behavior. We also want to use it to analyze the effects of environmental policy on energy prices and improve the management of logistics networks and supply chains,” says Prof. Dr. Roland Fried from the Statistics Faculty at TU Dortmund University, spokesman for the new TRR. The methods developed should later be transferable to other sectors.
In the interdisciplinary TRR, 29 scientists from statistics, mathematics, computer science, econometrics, geoinformatics, logistics, electrical engineering and the energy industry will work together - including twelve researchers from the TU Dortmund University from the faculties of statistics, electrical engineering and information technology, Mechanical engineering and economics and seven researchers from the Ruhr University from the faculties of mathematics, computer science and economics. In addition to the TU Dortmund as the speaker university and the Ruhr University Bochum, the University of Duisburg-Essen is also part of the Ruhr University Alliance as the third university. Also involved are the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the University of Hamburg, the University of Münster and the RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research. Vice-speaker is Prof. Dr. Holger Dette from the Faculty of Mathematics at the Ruhr University Bochum.
Press contact
Prof. Dr. Roland Fried
Faculty of Statistics
Technical university Dortmund
Phone: +49 231 755 3119
E-Mail: roland.fried(at)tu-dortmund.de
Prof. Dr. Holger Dette
Chair of Stochastics
Faculty of Mathematics
Ruhr-University Bochum
Phone: +49 234 32 28284
E-Mail: holger.dette(at)ruhr-uni-bochum.de
