The website of the ENERGIEWENDEBAUEN research initiative is now online. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is bundling its long-standing subsidy measures entitled Energy Optimized Building, Energy-Efficient City and Energy-Efficient Heating and Cooling Networks, and also research on thermal energy storage and low-temperature solar thermal energy systems in the redesigned research initiative. They are being brought together under one umbrella initiative.
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The Züblin construction group set high standards for the extension of their headquarters: in terms of construction, energy efficiency and sustainability. In operation, the energy consumed for heating and cooling is below the calculated values. The high-performance data processing centre housed in the building provides enough thermal energy to heat the building. The thermal comfort leads to a high level of satisfaction of the occupants. Most of the energy – far more than planned – is consumed by artificial light.
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Preparations are currently under way for a new energy research programme, which the German Federal Government intends to publish in the coming legislative period. In preparation, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has started a discussion process between representatives from industry, science and politics in order to identify relevant fields of research. In this interview Dr Johannes Tambornino, Head of Energy Strategies and System Analysis at Project Management Jülich speaks about the growing importance of system analysis for energy research. more...
A newly developed water wheel is now able to generate power at locations where it had previously been technically almost impossible. The machine works fully submerged without weirs at a low flow speed and can move forwards and backwards. As a result, it can be used in rivers and also in tidal currents. A prototype has successfully passed the laboratory tests. At the moment, developers at the University of Siegen are optimising and testing the water wheel in field conditions.
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Last week, on 2nd May 2017, the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Brigitte Zypries, opened the celebration for the anniversary of “40 years of energy research programmes in the German Federal Government” in the historic conference rooms of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Berlin. She emphasised that research and development are important components in the large modernisation and investment project for energy transformation in Germany.
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Aluminium foils and sheets pass through a cold roll stand during the last processing step of their production. Rolling oils are sprayed on to cool and lubricate the rolls. Some of these kerosene-like hydrocarbons evaporate and vaporise in the ambient air. Large extraction hoods above the roll stand collect the contaminated air and feed it to a recycling plant.
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Organic waste, thinning wood, straw and landscape management waste products are still little used for generating energy. This is because such biogenic residues have poor combustion properties owing to their inhomogeneous composition or high moisture contents. However, researchers from the Technical University of Munich and SunCoal Industries are now producing biocoal from such material using a new process.
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The "Flexible Energy Conversion" research network was founded in Berlin at the end of February 2017. Here, researchers and developers from the conventional power plant technology and solar thermal power plant fields will jointly develop future strategies. The goals: To increase the flexibility of large-scale power plants, develop new large-scale storage systems, extensively research the use of hydrogen in power plant processes and in particular optimise the economic efficiency of solar power plants.
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Molten salt can store large amounts of heat at high temperatures. In Cologne-Porz, researchers at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) are using a new test facility to find out where storage systems with only one tank could replace the common two-tank storage technologies. This would cut costs considerably. The system was presented to the public on 5 July 2017.
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Can new storage materials store unused solar thermal energy or industrial waste heat? What role could they play in cooling? To explore this, Dr Alexandra Lieb, head of the interdisciplinary junior research group NEOTHERM at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, reports on her basic research on metal-organic frameworks and zeolites in this BINE interview.
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