News 2016

Prof. Dr. Hans-Martin Henning and Dr. Andreas Bett will serve as provisional institute directors of Fraunhofer ISE as of January 1, 2017 for the interim. This decision was made by the executive board of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, since the appointment procedure for Prof. Dr. Eicke R. Weber’s successor has not yet been finalized. Having reached retirement age, Prof. Weber will be leaving Fraunhofer ISE at the end of 2016.

As commissioned by the German embassy in Cairo, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, in cooperation with SolarizEgypt, has calculated the electricity generation costs (LCOE) for renewable technologies and conventional power plants in Egypt. The results were published in a study and presented at a workshop at the German Science Centre Cairo. The calculations of Fraunhofer ISE show that electricity from wind and ground mounted PV systems in Egypt is already competitive today and, in part, less expensive than gas power plants and diesel generators.

On November 11, 2016 at the Konzerthaus in Freiburg, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE honored Prof. Eicke R. Weber’s achievements at a scientific symposium on the global energy transformation. The list of speakers at the symposium reflects Weber’s successful networking within the photovoltaics sector and beyond. The talks presented at the Scientific Symposium on Research for the Energy Transformation have been published on our blog Innovation4E in two parts.

Fraunhofer ISE and 7 European partners recently started a new Marie Sklodowska-Curie project in the field of photovoltaic module life time forecast and evaluation. The objective is to develop novel, validated models for the service life time and energy prediction of PV modules and systems. The SOLAR-TRAIN project will also qualify selected PhD students in the field of PV durability as part of a highly innovative, multi-disciplinary project meeting industry requirements. SOLAR-TRAIN invites applications for 14 PhD fellowships. The successful candidates will be hosted at leading European research centres and companies starting in March 2017. The deadline for applications is 11th December 2016.

The application deadline for the Master of Science Solar Energy Engineering is approaching soon.

Today megawatt-scale photovoltaic power plants must meet very high standards. These are required by investors, banks and insurance companies as a basis for financing or insurance. Against this background, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE and the VDE Testing and Certification Institute have developed a product that analyzes and evaluates all processes of a project from the planning stage through to operation. The joint services offered by the two institutes provide the customer with a substantiated report on the quality of their project. On June 23, 2016 at the Intersolar Europe, BayWa r.e. was the first company to be recognized with the VDE certificate for ground-mounted PV systems.

In Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants, the quality and durability of the employed functional materials have a high impact on the cost of the produced solar heat or electricity. Eleven European partners from the R&D sector, universities and industry affiliated together with the Moroccan Research Institute of MASCIR and the Israeli company of BrightSource Industries Israel to work during the next 4 years on improving the lifetime of key materials used in CSP.