Focussing on Renewables
Many of our academics have been researching and teaching on the topic areas “renewable energies” and “energy revolution” for some years now. Activities in this area include numerous stations of power supply – from the generation and supply of electricity, its transport and storage, to the commercial or private consumer.
Our Bachelor’s degree program Electrical Engineering, Information Technology and Computer Engineering is deliberately general and fundamentally oriented, and at the end of your studies, you have the opportunity to choose one out of four fields of specialization. If you decide to focus on Energy Engineering with the objective of working as an engineer in the field of renewable energies in your future career, we will provide you with the best prerequisites. Students who study Business Administration and Engineering with the field of study "Electrical Power Engineering" not only acquire the technical basics, but can also learn how to assess the changes associated with the increased use of renewable energies from an economic point of view. And even with the bachelor's thesis, future engineers or industrial engineers can contribute valuable results of their own!
Our contribution to better use of renewable energies
The background to the energy revolution is that renewable energies are for the most part "volatile" - in contrast to the predictable and stable output of conventional energy generation - and therefore it is not known exactly when and how much energy is made available, e.g. by a wind farm or a solar plant. But, of course, nobody wants the quality of energy supply to suffer as a result of such imbalances! For this reason, further developments are necessary in many areas in which we play a major role. Important topics on which we have running research projects are, for example:
System stability
The system stability of electrical networks is an essential feature of the energy supply and, due to their high level, an important locational advantage for Germany. In the course of the growing feed-in from renewable energy sources, the control mechanisms in this area must therefore become more complex in general terms: because, for example, energy gaps must be compensated immediately if wind power is not available due to a slack period, or the feed-in by solar systems corresponds to the changeable weather. It must always be taken into consideration that the IT used here must also meet the highly increased demands.
Storage technology
Our institutes are currently working on the development of efficient storage, because storage technology will play an extremely important role compared to the previous situation: In future, it has to compensate the strong feed-in fluctuations of renewable energies. These imbalances are currently largely compensated by the existing conventional power plants - and in order to be less or no longer dependent on them, storage power plants will become necessary.
Energy efficiency in municipalities and individual households
The increased use of renewable energy has also created new research needs at the municipal level, down to the individual households. Here, as well, the interdependencies become stronger and the interplay more complicated: For example, cities now want to increase their energy efficiency through sustainable measures and need enhanced planning tools for this. The integration of individual households into the electricity networks is becoming more complex, because households are no longer merely consumers of energy, but also produce it themselves and even feed surplus energy into the network (i.e. they are no longer just "consumers", but also "producers", and are therefore referred to as "prosumers").
Bachelor thesis topics from recent years in the field of "Renewable Energies" (selection)
- Simulation of feed-in profiles for photovoltaic systems in a distribution grid area
- Analysis of the feed-in management of renewable energy conversion plants in medium-voltage networks
- Analysis and evaluation of assessment criteria of supply security in generation systems with regenerative character
- Analysis and evaluation of marketing decisions for renewable energies in compliance with the Renewable Energy Sources Law
- Analysis of the influence of forecast errors of renewable energies on intraday trading
- Development of the master of a modular battery management system for Formula Student
- Development of a process for the automated synthesis of feed-in time series of renewable energies
- Development of an energy manager platform for distributed battery packs in electric vehicles
- Disruptions to contracts for photovoltaic systems
- Techno-economic evaluation of recycling plants for photovoltaic modules
- Economic aspects of a high-revolution multiple generator drive train for multi-megawatt wind-energy plants
- Implementation and testing of an algorithm for coordinated reactive power supply as a local system service by photovoltaic inverters
- Comparison and analysis of solar radiation data from different sources on the yield of photovoltaic systems
- Development of methods for optimizing hydraulic power plants
- Spatial allocation of self-consumption of electricity from renewable energies in households
- Development of a software tool for the design of LCL filters in wind-energy plants
- Development of a hybrid vehicle energy management system for intelligent use of route information
- and many more...
Important research projects in the field of "Renewable Energies" (selection):
| Forschungscampus Flexible Elektrische Netze (Research Campus Flexible Electrical Networks) |
| Center for Windpower Drives |
| E.ON Energy Research Center |
| M5Bat-Batteriespeicher (M5Bat battery storage) |
| Center Digital Energy |
| Testcenter Hüttenstraße |