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  • No clean water, no functioning electricity grid, no primary healthcare - a scenario that is not uncommon in remote areas of the sub-Saharan region. The founding of “S Mile Solutions (Pty) Ltd”, a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, is seeking to change this. The start-up, based in Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa, provides smart, small-scale and off-grid infrastructure solutions that are mounted on commercially available pick-up trucks, thereby enabling companies and institutions to access rural and remote communities with their services and products.

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  • Press Release #07 / 2024

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Visits Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg

    February 27, 2024

    Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg today. At Europe's largest solar research institute, he informed himself about new technologies for energy-efficient buildings and climate-neutral housing. Scientists from Fraunhofer ISE explained the latest research findings on heat pumps, integrated photovoltaics for building façades and vehicles, and charging infrastructures for electric vehicles. The German Chancellor was accompanied by Baden-Württemberg's Minister for Regional Development and Housing Nicole Razavi and Freiburg's Lord Mayor Martin Horn.

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  • Today there exists a wide range of solar cells, connection technologies, encapsulation materials and processes from which solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturers can choose. At the same time, manufacturers are faced with the challenge of bringing the most highly efficient, durable and recyclable PV modules onto the market. Also customized modules for integrated applications are in demand. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE develops and tests new product ideas for manufacturers. Thus, companies can test new module concepts, without having to purchase the necessary equipment and materials themselves. Today, the institute opened its newly organized and expanded technology evaluation center Module-TEC with an area of 1,000 square meters. In this development and production environment, PV modules prototypes can be manufactured in small batches and tested on industrial systems.

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  • Photovoltaic (PV) modules based on perovskite silicon tandem solar cells have the potential to achieve significantly higher efficiencies than today's standard silicon PV modules. A research team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE has now produced a PV module using perovskite silicon tandem solar cells from Oxford PV. With an efficiency of 25 percent and an output of 421 watts on an area of 1.68 square meters, it is the world's most efficient silicon perovskite tandem solar module in industrial format. For the manufacturing process, the researchers used equipment at Fraunhofer ISE's Module-TEC that is already used in mass production and optimized the processes for the tandem technology.

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  • In 2023, renewables accounted for a record share of 59.7 percent of the net public net electricity generation in Germany. The share of renewables in the load (the electricity mix coming from the socket) was 57.1 percent. This is the result of an analysis presented this week by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. New records were also set for wind and solar power in 2023. In contrast, generation from lignite (minus 27 percent) and hard coal (minus 35 percent) fell sharply. Newly installed photovoltaic capacity was in the double digits for the first time, amounting to around 14 gigawatts for 2023. This significantly exceeded the German government's statutory climate protection target. All the data for these statistics can be found on the platform energy-charts.info.

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  • Many people want to use the greenest electricity mix available to charge their electric cars, run their heat pumps or smart home appliances. With the infor-mation on the new “PowerSignal" app from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, this is now possible. The app, which shows the current share of renewables in the net public electricity generation for 12 European countries and the day-ahead electricity price for 34 European countries, is now available for Android devices. With this app, the users can adjust their electricity consumption with the renewable share accordingly.

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  • Photovoltaic module manufacturers use modules measured by third parties as a reference when determining the output of individual modules in their production line. To select the right PV modules, developers of PV power plants rely on precise, independent output measurements to inspect the quality of the modules they purchased and to make accurate yield forecastings. For this purpose, the accredited calibration laboratory CalLab PV Modules of Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE and the National Metrology Institute of Germany (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, PTB) regularly compare their measurement results. This allows them to continuously improve their accuracy, ensuring that all stakeholders in the PV industry can rely on their independent measurements. The result of their most recent comparison: Once again, the results they produced were nearly identical, with the respective measured outputs (Pmpp) deviating less than half a percent from each other.

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  • The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has set itself the goal of becoming one of the leading global producers of low-carbon hydrogen by 2031. With this aim, the UAE government commissioned the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Integrated Energy Systems (CINES) and the consulting firm GHD Advisory to develop a National Hydrogen Strategy. The strategy, released yesterday at the second Emirates Energy Forum by the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure (MOEI), is a comprehensive analysis of the opportunities and obstacles for the future hydrogen economy in the UAE.

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  • The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE has developed and suc-cessfully commissioned the world’s first medium-voltage string inverter for large-scale power plants. By feeding power into the medium-voltage grid, the “MS-LeiKra” project team has demonstrated that PV inverters are technically capable of handling higher voltage levels. The benefits for photovoltaics in-clude enormous cost and resource savings for passive components and cables. The device lays the foundation for a new system concept for the next genera-tion of large-scale PV power plants, which can also be applied to wind turbines, electric mobility and industrial applications.

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  • © © AvigatorPhotographer

    Green hydrogen and its derivatives – ammonia, methanol, and synthetic kerosene – store energy from the sun and wind in order to transfer it efficiently from distant regions to Europe. At the same time, many industries that cannot use electricity directly as an energy source will be dependent on these climate-neutral alternatives to fossil gas and oil in the future. On behalf of the H2Global Foundation, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE has examined 39 regions in 12 countries preselected by H2Global to determine where the production of such Power-to-X (PtX) products, in conjunction with transport to Germany, would be most cost-effective by 2030. The result: Brazil, Colombia, and Australia offer particularly good conditions for the import of green ammonia, methanol, and kerosene. Imports of gaseous green hydrogen could come from southern Europe or North Africa, provided that pipelines are available in time for transport.

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