Press Release

Whether grid control and planning, the operational management of photovoltaic systems and storage facilities or their design: These and other tasks require load time series that map the increasingly dynamic consumption of many households far more accurately than standard load profiles. The Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology IEE and its partners in the SyLas-KI research project have therefore developed an AI-supported tool that can be used to create high-resolution synthetic load time series for numerous different consumers. They are indistinguishable from real measurement data in terms of their characteristics but meet all data protection requirements.

A new Fraunhofer ISI study analysed future cost developments for price-setting components of zero-emission trucks from more than 200 sources. The study findings show that zero-emission trucks will benefit from rapidly falling costs of batteries and fuel cells, which will enable their fast market diffusion and help to achieve national and international climate policy targets. With battery-electric trucks as currently most promising and cost-effective zero-emission technology for most use cases, industry and policy must prepare with respect to their manufacturing, comprehensive charging infrastructure, electricity grid expansion, and regulation.

Wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductor technology and artificial intelligence together are revolutionizing power electronics. A new class of intelligent power electronic systems is unlocking new performance and application areas. The high demands of system development impact the entire power electronics value chain. Specifically, this applies to semiconductor materials and devices as well as packaging and module technology. Extreme operating and environmental conditions demand maximum reliability and ultra-high performance. At PCIM Europe 2024, Fraunhofer IISB, Fraunhofer ISIT and Fraunhofer IMS together present the entire value chain for next-generation power electronics.

Together with its project partners RWE, ForWind (University of Oldenburg – Institute of Physics), and Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES is investigating in the “C²-Wakes – Controlled Cluster Wakes” research project how the total energy yield of offshore wind farms can be optimized. The aim of the project is to utilize an extensive offshore wind measurement campaign and modeling methods to determine if and how large-scale wake effects and the global blockage effect can be reduced in the future. The project is set to make significant contributions to climate change mitigation and ensure reliable and cost-efficient energy supply. To date, little research on this topic has been conducted anywhere in the world. The project is being funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) with a total of around €2.86 million.

The use of fiber-reinforced plastics in sandwich construction enables highly efficient lightweight structures. Leading international experts presented and discussed current trends in material and technology development and new fields of application for sandwich materials at the "Composite Sandwich Conference" on 24/25 April 2024 in Halle (Saale). They showed solutions in the field of tension between raw material efficiency, digitalization and sustainability, for example for applications in the automotive industry, aviation or photovoltaics.

Many decision-makers find it difficult to realistically assess the opportunities and risks of carbon nanotubes, or CNTs for short. A white paper by Fraunhofer IPA and other experts provides the necessary background – understandable even for non-experts.

By making cooling supply systems more flexible, CO2 emissions can be reduced by 22 to 39 percent and electricity procurement costs by 35 to 54 percent. Fraunhofer UMSICHT came to this conclusion in the "FlexKaelte" project. At the same time, the researchers found that there are still a number of obstacles and hurdles on the way to flexibilization – from concerns about possible losses in cooling quality and a lack of information regarding the achievable economic potential to the question of how cooperation between the various players can be structured. How these obstacles can be overcome is the focus of the follow-up project "FlexBlue", for which the institute has joined forces with a number of partners.

The recycling of components from end-of-life solar modules is an important approach to the sustainable use of resources. This allows certain components of solar modules to be reused or converted into new products. The recently launched joint project "RETRIEVE" aims to make this possible: When recycling solar module components, the goal is to improve the material quality so that it meets the current requirements for reintegration into the photovoltaic value chain. The Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics CSP is contributing its expertise in material analysis and process optimization to the project, which will run until March 2027.

In the “HoLa” project, a total of eight high-performance charging points for trucks using the Megawatt Charging System (MCS) are being installed at five locations along the A2 between Berlin and the Ruhr region and used in real logistics operations. Recommendations for action have been derived from the research results available to date that contain important findings for a nationwide expansion of charging infrastructure. All the results were presented today at the European “HoLa conference” in Berlin and are documented in a report.

Bremen/Gdynia, Poland, March 2024 – The Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES has conducted a boulder detection campaign in the Baltic Sea on behalf of Baltic Power for the foundations of the planned wind turbines. It also applied the surveying technology along the planned subsea cable routes for the very first time. The innovative Manta Ray G1 measuring system allows not only the detection of boulders located up to 100 meters below the seafloor but also the surveying of shallower objects along cable corridors. This technology developed by Fraunhofer IWES makes it possible to minimize risks posed by boulders during the installation of wind turbines, offshore substations (OSS), and cables.