Press Releases 2016

In its study Energy storage – monitoring update 2016, the Fraunhofer ISI examines whether Germany has made any progress towards its goal of becoming a lead market and lead supplier for energy storage systems for electric mobility. The international viewpoint is also that high quality battery research is being done in Germany at the moment. Support should be continued to maintain this momentum and so that Germany might be able to turn its technology know-how into domestic battery cell production after 2020. Companies located along the value chain are now looking at the leading battery cell supplier countries of Japan, Korea and China.

Self-tracking devices and technologies are now part of everyday life for many people and harbor both potentials and risks. The Fraunhofer ISI has therefore conducted an impact assessment that looks at the implications and challenges of quantified-self technologies. As part of the joint “Wissenstransfer 2.0“ project, this work was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The findings are summarized in a policy paper.

The EU Commission has introduced the De-risking Energy Efficiency Platform. Based on more than 7,800 measures and actions that have already been implemented, this free benchmarking website enables businesses, investors and political decision-makers to assess which investments in energy efficiency are particularly worth making. The Fraunhofer ISI played a decisive role in developing this platform by providing thousands of data sets.

One research project of the Fraunhofer ISI explored how Germany, China, Italy, Japan and Switzerland are dealing with the impacts of demographic change on their societies. The objective of the project that was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is to learn from the experiences of other countries also affected by demographic change.

The project "Evaluating increased efficiency in care documentation" examines the quality and efficiency of a documentation system introduced in Germany in 2015 to reduce bureaucracy in nursing care. Based on the findings, recommendations on how the further introduction and use of the documentation system can be optimized are to be developed.

H2Mobility wants to extend the network of hydrogen filling stations in Germany with the “50 filling stations program“. This initiative is also supported by the German Federal Ministry of Transport. Within the scope of the accompanying research of this program Fraunhofer ISI has also investigated how experienced and new customers assessed filling up with hydrogen.

The EU project “Joining Efforts for Responsible Research and Innovation“, known as “JERRI“ has been launched, coordinated by the Fraunhofer ISI. Fraunhofer and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO are working on anchoring Responsible Research and Innovation in their organizations.

The Fraunhofer ISI has developed a new benchmarking module for non-energy intensive enterprises so that they can compare themselves to their competitors in terms of efficient energy use. The module adds the aspect of energy efficiency to the existing industry benchmarking and helps both larger and smaller companies to identify ways to save energy and put them into practice.

China is an important sales market for many German companies, but the country is also becoming more important for Germany as a research partner. However, as the 2015 innovation indicator shows, the Chinese economy is currently not very dynamic and China lies somewhere in the lower middle of the innovation ranking. For Germany, which is ranked in fifth place by the innovation indicator, the low innovativeness of the Chinese economy could have negative impacts on economic growth and research in the long term.

There are many different ways to raise the social acceptance of onshore wind projects and thus increase the planning security for new installations. The challenge consists of sifting through them and adapting them to a specific case. The interactive online tool “WE Engage” was developed in the “WISE Power” project and addresses all the relevant stakeholders in the field of wind power as well as all other interested parties. It is available free of charge.