Press Releases 2023

Led by Fraunhofer ISI, the BOLD project provided scientific support accompanying three field trials and twelve other research projects on electric trucks powered by overhead lines. Together with ifeu and Öko-Institut and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Fraunhofer ISI analyzed the acceptance of the technology, the opportunities and barriers in industry and the policy landscape as well as the climate and environmental impact of the technology. The now published final report describes the main lessons from these projects and assesses the potential rollout of the technology.

Existing strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are unlikely to be sufficient to mitigate climate change. One way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the air is through negative emissions, which is the removal of CO₂ from the air followed by storage. Various natural and technical processes are available for this purpose. One of these technical options is Direct Air Capture and Carbon Storage (DACCS). In the current Policy Brief, the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI provides an overview of the opportunities and challenges of this process.

Mobile units for processing fruit and vegetables on-site may play an important role in food supply in 2035. The EU’s FOX project investigated the form that such local food chains might take. To this end, Fraunhofer ISI developed future scenarios that could be used to test the viability of business models for regional food processing and distribution.

Many European countries, including Germany, are planning large investments to develop and ramp up the hydrogen industry needed for this. Within the HyPat research project, a new study by Fraunhofer ISI, RIFS Potsdam and the German Energy Agency (dena) makes five recommendations to the EU and the Member States and reveals a significant mismatch between the ratio of current investments and the potentials of individual European regions for low-cost hydrogen production.

Fraunhofer ISI's new roadmap looks at alternative battery technologies for the period up to 2045. Their technology-specific advantages, future areas of application, markets and supply chains are analyzed, as well as Europe's positioning, the costs and the industrial scalability. The roadmap also identifies areas where the EU and Germany need to take action with regard to technology sovereignty. It was developed as part of the BMBF accompanying project BEMA II.

In the "H2GO" project, Fraunhofer ISI conducted an innovation analysis on fuel cells, the results of which have now been published on a new website. It covers insights into the development and diffusion of emerging technologies as well as estimates concerning the emergence of new markets and the development of production capacities. Together with complementary studies on electrolysis, this creates a basis for a comprehensive roadmap of hydrogen technologies.

As of July 1, 2023, Prof. Dr. Jakob Edler, Executive Director of the Fraunhofer ISI in Karlsruhe, has taken over the chairmanship of the Fraunhofer Group for Innovation Research. Edler succeeds Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Bauer, who is a member of the Institute Directorate of Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart and has chaired the Group for six years since its founding.

Cheaper alternatives, high energy demand for production, questionable environmental footprint and possible obstacle to transforming the transport sector: There are manifold reasons not to use synthetic fuels produced with electricity in cars and trucks. This is the conclusion of a new discussion paper by Fraunhofer ISI. Based on scientific findings, it takes a critical view of the German government’s recent decision that plans to allow e-fuels a major role in achieving climate neutrality in the transport sector in the future.

A new study by Fraunhofer ISI on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport in Germany compared the total costs of various passenger car drives and reveals a clear, long-term cost advantage for electric vehicles over ICE cars, even though electric cars have significantly higher purchase costs to start with. If electric cars are charged using self-generated power, this can lead to a significant cost advantage over a longer period of time. A fact sheet summarizes all the results of comparing the different drive types.

Hydrogen is one of the pillars of the energy transition. However, there is still uncertainty about its specific applications and the scope of hydrogen use. A new study by Fraunhofer ISI addresses this issue and looks at the price-elastic demand for hydrogen in sectors such as industry, transport and energy conversion. This study was conducted as part of the “HyPat - Global Atlas of H2 Potential” project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Specialized simulation models are used to depict alternative ways of achieving the climate goals.