Off-Grid Power Supplies

Two thousand million people without electricity, a multitude of technical power supplies for telematics, telecommunications or environmental measurement systems, and four thousand million portable electronic devices indicate the potential for intelligent, off-grid power supplies. In addition, there is a huge market for renewable energy technology in the areas of decentralised desalination and water purification. We develop stand-alone power supply systems based on photovoltaics (PV), fuel cells, wind energy and hydroelectricity to meet your needs. Application areas range from portable appliances through to stationary technical power supplies and the rural electrification of huts and villages.

Grid-Connected Renewable Power Generation

The construction of decentralized, grid-connected systems is the largest global market in the photovoltaic branch today. Well-implemented market introduction programmes are ensuring high growth rates. To maintain this market growth while subsidies are decreased, the costs for the systems technology – including inverters, installation and cabling systems – must be reduced continually. In particular for this purpose, we offer our expertise and specialised knowledge in the fields of circuit design and layout as well as in configuring and implementing analog and digital controllers.

Whether photovoltaics, wind energy, hydroelectricity or cogeneration plants: in Germany alone tens of thousands of decentralized, grid-connected energy systems feed electricity into the distribution grid. We offer data acquisition, monitoring and analysis of such systems to support the yield assurance in the low voltage network. We develop system solutions for the economic operation of decentralized, grid-connected systems and analyse potential repercussions that a large number of feed-in systems could have on the voltage quality in the electricity grid.

For solar electricity generation on a large scale, Fraunhofer ISE offers technologies for solar thermal power stations and concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) power stations.

With its range of technical services, ISE CalLab, the photovoltaic calibration laboratory at Fraunhofer ISE, is one of the leading laboratories of its kind in the world