07/12/2023
Source: Energy & Management Powernews
Generating electricity and heat from the sun with a module, transforming railroad tracks into solar open space plants: The German Federal Foundation for the Environment promotes innovative ideas of the energy transition.
As a continuing "stable and reliable contact" for business, science and civil society, the German Federal Foundation for the Environment (DBU) sees itself, according to its Secretary General Alexander Bonde. The state institution once again funded innovative energy transition projects with around 56.4 million euros in the past fiscal year.
The German government had established the foundation in 1990 with the money from the sale of Salzgitter AG. Medium-sized companies, but now also start-ups in the environmental sector, have since benefited from funds from the DBU, which is based in Osnabrück (Lower Saxony). Or, as Bonde put it at the annual press conference, "We are the bobsleigh of master builders in the environmental sector for the concrete implementation of energy transition projects, for example."
With a view to Germany's climate neutrality targets by 2045, the DBU promotes concrete examples of solutions, he said. According to Bonde, the focus cannot be solely on expanding renewable energies as quickly as possible. An "energy-saving turbo" and an "efficiency boom" are also needed. After all, "the less energy we consume, the faster renewables can meet our needs," the DBU secretary general said.
High-power laser helps recycle metal alloys
Felix Gruber, head of the environmental technology department, illustrated the need for action in the energy transition by referring to figures from the Federal Environment Agency. Currently, Germany has only decarbonized a good fifth of its final energy consumption. In 2022, 21.8 percent of the 2,290 billion kWh would come from renewable sources. Almost half of the electricity sector has already been converted (46.2 percent), but heating (17.4 percent) and transport (6.8 percent) have a lot of catching up to do. In addition, sector coupling is a major challenge. Among the projects funded last year was an efficiency idea from Clean Lasersysteme GmbH. It helps to analyze scrap for its material composition (alloy) and thus make it available for recycling in the sense of the circular economy. This is done by means of a high-power laser, which melts small pieces of scrap by flashing them. The triggered vaporization allows the composition of the metal to be determined spectroscopically, after which the complex sorting and recovery process can begin.
Another project is still at the feasibility study stage, which the DBU also deemed worthy of funding. This is the idea of Qinum GmbH to open up Deutsche Bahn's 60,000 kilometers of track beds for solar energy. This innovation still has two hurdles to overcome. On the one hand, there are the practical issues of how the modules can survive deer crossing undamaged, for example, and how they can be protected against vandalism. On the other hand, from a cost perspective, a rail-mounted vehicle needs to be developed that can lay the modules automatically.
Another funded project is the Solink collector invented by Consolar Solare Energiesysteme. It is a solar module on top and a heat exchanger on the bottom that feeds a heat pump. This combination generates electricity, uses the waste heat from the solar module and extracts heat from the ambient air when the sun is not shining.
And finally, DBU funding is continuously flowing into more powerful solar cells. The Helmholtz Center in Berlin, for example, has succeeded in improving the efficiency of tandem cells once again, he said. The research facility recently set a "world efficiency record" of almost 30 percent with the perovskite silicon cells it developed, which consist of two material systems. Here, he said, a special intermediate layer has made it possible to achieve better light distribution and thus lose less light in solar production.
In total, an endowment capital of 2.4 billion euros forms the basis for the DBU's work. Last year, it was not possible to generate quite as much income from the fixed assets as in the previous year (115 million euros). The surplus from asset management was still 75.2 million euros. DBU Chief Financial Officer Michael Dittrich said the environmental foundation had built up slightly higher reserves over the past decade (with a stable surplus of about 100 million euros) for capital preservation and stable funding. "This protects us currently," Dittrich said.
The amount of funding paid out fell slightly by 3 million euros to 56.4 million euros compared to 2021. This includes prize money for the prestigious annual German Environmental Award. This year, the award is scheduled for October 29 in Lübeck.
Author: Volker Stephan
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