The villagers of Wildpoldsried are celebrating a bumper harvest this year – not of wheat, or flax, a traditional crop in this part of southern Bavaria, but energy.

The village of 2,500 inhabitants has so many solar panels, wind turbines and biomass digesters that it generates three times the energy it consumes. The surplus is sold into Germany’s electricity grid, creating a big revenue stream for the locals.

The people of Wildpoldsried are ‘prosumers” – both producers and consumers of energy. It is a class that is growing fast in this part of the world, as Germany steams ahead with its Energiewende – its hugely ambitious switch away from polluting fossil fuels to renewable energy.

But the stunning success of places such as Wildpoldsried has created a dilemma for Germany’s electricity system. All that surplus energy can undermine the stability of the grid.

That is why Wildpoldsried is now the site of a unique experiment. It has become a testing ground for intelligent control systems designed to ensure that renewable energy does not put electricity networks at risk.

Interest in smart grids has grown as the world’s energy transition gathers pace. All over the world, countries are striving to achieve three often competing objectives – […]