diveo was founded in 2023 and is a Fraunhofer ISE spin-off for agrivoltaics systems. The company combines agrivoltaics expertise with experienced founders and develops nationwide projects ranging from 500 kWp to 50 MWp plus battery energy storage systems (BESS). Different types of systems are used, from high-mounted static east-west agrivoltaics systems to tracking 1P/2P/2H systems.
ENIT was founded in September 2014 as a spin-off of Fraunhofer ISE. The company develops and sells energy monitoring software so that industrial companies can monitor their decentralized energy systems such as combined heat and power plants, photovoltaic systems or industrial consumers. Through their solutions, customers gain more transparency about electricity, heat, and gas consumption and can control plants intelligently and operate them more efficiently. The technology developed in-house is tailored to the customer's plant and remains open to new systems in the future. In this way, the young company wants to be a partner for industrial companies on the path to climate neutrality.
The Company was founded as SorTech AG in April 2002 as a spin-off of Fraunhofer ISE and the UFE Solar GmbH. FAHRENHEIT aims to explore heat sources for cooling and therefore use low temperature heat as an energy source in place of electricity. The systems provide cost-effective and environmentally friendly cooling. Now, a system technology is available that takes the excess heat from a variety of thermal sources, especially during summer, and converts it into useful cost-effective cooling. The named thermal sources include district heating, solar systems and motors as well as all types of waste heat that are generated in many different types of production processes.
greenventory is a spin-off of Fraunhofer ISE and KIT founded in 2019. The Freiburg-based start-up offers a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution for the automated mapping and analysis of customer-specific energy systems. greenventory empowers their clients – especially energy utilities, grid operators and cities – with the data and digital tools they need to design the transition towards sustainable energy easier, faster and more cost-efficient.
HighLine Technology develops and commercializes highly efficient dispensing technology to benefit future relevant production industries with resource saving innovation. In close collaboration with Fraunhofer ISE and access to the PV-TEC Laboratory, their main focus is to reduce material consumption in the PV-industry and thus further increase its competitiveness and sustainability.
A spin-off from the Division for “PV Production Technology and Quality Control” was already created at the beginning of the year. Daniel Biro, Head of Department for “Thermal Processes, PVD and Printing Technology for Industrial Cell Structures”, and Mike Jahn, an engineer responsible for ink-jet equipment and processes, founded the company, JB Instruments GmbH. The company goal is to develop innovative products in the field of ink-jet technology. The main focus is on further developing ink-jet printers that are already established in technical fields for applications with functional media, particularly for applications in solar cell production. The first licensing and service contracts have been signed, documenting the attractiveness of this product development, which can contribute to further cost reduction in solar cell production.
messeffekt GmbH is a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg. With its mobile energy measuring system, the company carries out temporary energy consumption measurements and troubleshooting in large ventilation systems and other energy consumers. Thus messeffekt helps its customers to find energy saving potentials.
Mondas GmbH was founded in April 2018 as a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, PSE AG and Biberach University of Applied Sciences. The company provides an IoT system platform with which users can collect and analyze data from many similar energy and production units, monitor them and operate a time- and cost-saving commissioning management system for buildings.
In order to further reduce the costs of photovoltaic modules, the photovoltaic industry needs new technological breakthroughs. One contribution was made by Fraunhofer ISE in June 2015 by founding the NexWafe GmbH as a spin-off to transfer the manufacturing process developed at Fraunhofer ISE for epitaxially growing silicon wafers (“kerfless wafer technology”) into production. NexWafe‘s products will serve the multibillion dollar high-end wafer market. Being based on epitaxy, the kerfless wafer is a drop-in replacement for conventional wafers produced from a single-crystal ingot by a wire sawing process. The consumption of materials and energy is drastically reduced in this type of wafer production, resulting not only in a cost advantage but also greater sustainability of the photovoltaic modules. The founder and CEO of the enterprise is Dr Stefan Reber, formerly Head of Department for “Crystalline Silicon – Materials and Thin-Film Solar Cells” at Fraunhofer ISE. The spin-off is supported by Fraunhofer Venture.
PSE Instruments GmbH, founded in 1999, has specialized expertise the development of test facilities and measuring instruments as well as in the realization of turnkey laboratories around the world. Through close networking with research in the field of renewable energies, in particular with Fraunhofer ISE, PSE contributes to enabling the sustainable success of these future technologies.
The Fraunhofer ISE spin-off PV2+, founded in 2022, has patented an electroplating process to replace silver with copper for solar cells. Copper is 1000 times more abundant, 100 times cheaper, and 20+ times more sustainable. Moreover, PV2+’s copper plating offers a higher performance, as it results in 30% less shading due to narrow conductive paths and is 2-3 times more conductive.
SolarSpring GmbH, based in Freiburg, Germany, was founded in February 2009 as a spin-off company of the Fraunhofer ISE. In arid and semi-arid regions the lack of drinkable water often corresponds with a high solar insolation. This favours the use of solar energy as the driving force for water treatment systems. The main scope of the company is the development, construction, production and distribution of solar powered water treatment systems and particular membrane distillation and reverse osmosis systems for desalination, membrane filtration systems for purification and disinfections systems. However, the overall objectives are decentralized autonomous systems for remote areas; the supply of water to decentralized areas from water sources like seawater, salty (brackish) well-water, contaminated or dirty surface water (rivers, lakes, wells). Beside SolarSpring is active in non-solar driven water treatment with membrane distillation and ultrafiltration, industrial process water treatment and supply with either high purity water or higher concentrated solutions.
Solares bauen GmbH emerged in co-operation with the group Solar Building at Fraunhofer ISE. The engineers in the company came from Fraunhofer ISE as well as planning offices. The close link between practice and research offers the customer a particular advantage. Since it was founded in 1999, the company has specialized in the efficient use of energy and on all renewable energy sources. The main priority of the company work is to create an optimized and comfortable indoor climate. The correct mix of energy conservation and energy supply provide the customer with the best result.
The core business of the spin-off is the design and the realisation of functional surfaces for light management and other applications. Founded as Holotools GmbH in 2001 by engineers and scientists of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. Extensive technological know-how has been developed in micro optics, lithography processes, micro patterning techniques and optical design. A strong focus has been set on the realisation of uniform microstructures on large areas without any seam lines - the key success factor for the commercial use of microstructures in many applications.
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE