Press Releases

Heat pumps are a key technology for the energy transformation, since they cover the heating demand efficiently and sustainably. While the market for heat pumps in detached and semi-detached homes is growing continuously, there is still potential for heat pump use in multi-family homes and for commercial and industrial applications. At the Chillventa, the international trade fair for cooling, air-conditioning, ventilation and heat pumps, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE focuses on the potential and the current challenges facing heat pumps in a special presentation. The Chillventa trade fair takes place from 16-18 October 2018 in the City of Nuremberg.

Photovoltaics is booming worldwide. If one considers PV installations in 2017, Europe has lost its pioneering role and now holds fourth place behind China, the USA and India. On the other hand, Europe is leading worldwide in PV research and development as demonstrated by the 35th European PV Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition EU PVSEC, held this year in Brussels from 24-28 September 2018. Fraunhofer ISE, Europe’s largest solar research institute, is represented at the conference with over 60 contributions in the form of talks, posters, session chairs and two plenary speeches as well as a booth at the exhibition.

Similar to the human brain, artificial neural networks develop action strategies autonomously using examples (i.e. training data) experienced in the practice. The network structure is based on the neurobiological findings on the functioning of the human brain. A logical following is to apply such network structures for the technical control of systems. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE has done just that and developed self-learning artificial neural networks (ANN) for controlling solar thermal heating systems in the project “ANNsolar – Neural Networks for the Use in Solar Thermal Systems.” The system gathers data on the thermal building dynamics, the change in heating demand due to the solar radiation incident on the building envelope, and the state of charge of the thermal energy storage dependent on the operating conditions. With this basis, the network can predict the future thermal conditions without a simulation. The neural networks learn the respective dependencies autonomously.

Opened as a research factory for solar cells twelve years ago, the Photovoltaic Technology Evaluation Center PV-TEC at Fraunhofer ISE is an important player in the piloting of crystalline silicon solar cells. The unique service center for the entire PV value chain helps to close the gap between research and industry, making it a pivotal driver of innovation transfer. After a fire badly damaged the facility last year, the PV-TEC technology platform was officially reopened on July 9, 2018, complete with brand new equipment.

Agrophotovoltaics (APV), a technology which combines the production of solar electricity and crops on the same land, has already been successfully demonstrated in pilot projects in several European countries. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in cooperation with the Innovation Group “APV-Resola” have proven the feasibility of Agrophotovoltaics with a 194 kWp APV pilot system realized on a farm near Lake Constance in Germany. The project results showed that APV increases the land-use efficiency by 60 percent. “The next step is to establish a proof of concept for the APV system technology in developing and threshold countries. Due to the higher levels of solar radiation in these countries, APV can make better use of its strengths. The potential is enormous,” says Stephan Schindele, project head of Agrophotovoltaics at Fraunhofer ISE, who is now focusing on transferring the technology to other climatic zones as well as other applications.

The reseachers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE will be presenting their newest developments on June 20-22, 2018 at the Intersolar Europe 2018 (Hall A1.540) in Munich. The highlights include novel resource-saving printing technologies for solar wafer metallization, new examples of building-integrated photovoltaics, highly compact and efficient inverters and a broad spectrum of quality assurance instrumentation and testing services as well as an innovative battery storage system for stationary applications.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE developed and successfully put into operation an inverter for direct feed-in to the 10 kV medium-voltage grid. The inverter contains high-voltage silicon carbide (SiC) transistors which allow for coupling to the medium voltage grid without requiring an additional transformer. The three-phase inverter can be used to regulate reactive power as well as to actively filter undesirable harmonics in the electricity grid. Thus, it actively contributes to the stabilization of future power grids with a large share of renewables.

Global experts in solar power believe the world will reach 1 terawatt (TW) of installed solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity within the next five years. That is the opinion voiced by 95 percent of the approximately 70 authorities who gathered in Golden, Colorado, USA for the second Terawatt Workshop held by the Global Alliance of Solar Energy Research Institutes (GA-SERI). The alliance was formed in 2012 and includes the three world leading solar research institutes, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL (USA), the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology AIST (Japan) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE (Germany).

Photovoltaics (PV) is one of the key technologies of a sustainable energy supply based on renewable energy. Besides silicon-based photovoltaics, which presently dominates the market, there are other materials, such as perovskite, that also show great potential. Scientists are testing the proof of concept of these new types of solar cells. Very innovative is a new process for fabricating solar cells using sustainable and more resource-friendly methods. Hereby the number of production steps can be drastically reduced by reversing the manufacturing process. Such an in-situ concept for printed perovskite solar cells is being developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. With a record efficiency of 12.6 %, the researchers have now reached an important milestone in the field of printed photovoltaics.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE and teamtechnik, an international leader in production technology, report that it is now possible to connect high efficiency solar cells using electrically conductive adhesives in series production. The results of the joint research project »KleVer« show that the adhesive technology is ready for the market and can be used as an alternative to the widespread soft soldering interconnection technology. Due to the much lower process temperatures of this technology compared to soldering, temperature-sensitive high efficiency solar cells can be connected using adhesives in a gentle and material-saving process. In industrial production, the throughput is only slightly lower than with soldering. The reliability of the adhesive connection was confirmed in tests carried out in a climate chamber.