NexusControl Kick-Off Workshop lays the Foundation for Concept Development

On 18 August 2026, the NexusControl consortium met in person for the first time at a kick-off workshop hosted by Ruhrverband in Essen. Coordinated by FiW, the partners laid the foundation for joint concept development and refined the project vision, interim objectives, and intended results. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) under the “Water-Energy Nexus” funding guideline and managed by Project Management Agency Karlsruhe (PTKA).

In NexusControl, the Research Institute for Water Management and Climate Future at RWTH Aachen University (FiW), Ruhrverband, Stadtentwässerungsbetriebe Köln, AöR (StEB Köln), the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (EWI), and logarithmo GmbH & Co. KG are jointly developing a forecast-based balancing group management system for the water sector. The project aims to coordinate interconnected facilities comprising wastewater treatment plants, renewable energy installations, and other water management sites in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve energy neutrality. NexusControl will thus create a currently missing link between the water and energy sectors and provide a key building block for intelligent, cross-site energy management in the wastewater sector. Pilot implementation at Ruhrverband and transfer to StEB Köln will demonstrate the practical applicability and transferability of the approach.

The kick-off workshop focused on developing a shared project vision, clarifying interim objectives, and specifying the intended project results and functionalities. The interdisciplinary exchange combined the water and energy management expertise of FiW and EWI with the data science and platform expertise of Fraunhofer IPT and the SME logarithmo, as well as the operational knowledge of the application partners Ruhrverband and StEB Köln.