Katharina Esterl

Driven by the desire to actively contribute to the transformation of our energy system toward a climate- and environmentally-friendly future, Katharina pursued a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Power Engineering and a Master's degree in Systems Engineering at Flensburg University of Applied Sciences.

During her studies, she worked as a student assistant in the research projects open_eGo and eGon, where she contributed to the development of open, high-resolution spatial and temporal models of Germany’s sector-coupled energy system, as well as related optimization tools for cross-grid level planning of electricity infrastructure and flexibility options.

Since May 2022, Katharina has been working as a research associate at the Europa-Universität Flensburg, where she continues her work in the field of cross-sectoral power grid modeling. In the OptIES Dörpum project, she explored the tension between locally and system-wide optimized configurations of a sector-coupled local energy system—using the “IES Dörpum” as a case study— and demonstrated how different optimization perspectives affect system design. 

In the current project reGon, she supports the transfer of models and tools developed through years of research into practical application.

As part of her PhD, Katharina focuses on complexity management for cross-grid level optimization of open, sector-coupled energy system models. Her doctoral work is supported by a fellowship from the Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft.

• Esterl, K./ Oei, P.-Y. (2025): Offene Optimierung sektorgekoppelter regionaler Energiesysteme am Beispiel des IES Dörpum (OptIES Dörpum) - Abschlussbericht. https://zenodo.org/records/15687677/files/Projektabschlussbericht.pdf?download=1
• Esterl, K./ Epia Realpe, C. A./ Müller, U. P. (2024): Avoiding false inter-zonal meshing in the clustering of a large-scale German power grid. Energy Strategy Reviews, 56, 101569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2024.101569
• Flensburg University of Applied Sciences/ University of Flensburg, Reiner Lemoine Institute/ Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg/ German Aerospace Center Institute of Networked Energy Systems (2024): Ein offenes netzebenen- und sektorenübergreifendes Planungsinstrument zur Bestimmung des optimalen Einsatzes und Ausbaus von Flexibilitätsoptionen in Deutschland - Projektabschlussbericht. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10677901
• Büttner, C./ Esterl, K./ Cußmann, I./ Epia Realpe, C. A./ Amme, J./ Nadal, A. (2024): Influence of flexibility options on the German transmission grid — A sector-coupled mid-term scenario. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Transition, 5, 100082. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rset.2024.100082
• Müller et al. (2019): "open_eGo - Netzebenenübergreifendes Planungsinstrument - zur Bestimmung des optimalen Netz- und Speicherausbaus in Deutschland - integriert in einer OpenEnergyPlatform - Abschlussbericht". ISSN: 2196-7164. https://www.uni-flensburg.de/fileadmin/content/abteilungen/industrial/dokumente/downloads/veroeffentlichungen/forschungsergebnisse/20190426endbericht-openego-fkz0325881-final.pdf?sword_list%5B0%5D=katharina&sword_list%5B1%5D=esterl&no_cache=1