Press Release

The German automotive industry’s transformation toward electric mobility is more advanced than is often assumed. This is shown by a strategy paper based on a survey of managers in the automotive industry. At the same time, the industry is split into pioneers (fast transformers) and laggards (slow transformers): In particular, those companies that have already invested heavily in electrification are opposed to any watering down in phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles and CO2 emission performance standards. Instead, they want to see reliable framework conditions to improve planning certainty and additional measures to boost the demand for electric vehicles.

As part of the development of the Estonian Liivi Offshore Wind Farm project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES has conducted a site condition monitoring campaign in Liivi Bay, commissioned by Enefit. The Fraunhofer IWES Stage 3+ Wind Lidar Buoy, a Floating Lidar System, was installed together with co-deployed Oceanographic Sensors to collect a year of measurements, e.g., wind profiles, turbulence intensity (TI), wave and current parameters. It was the first commercial campaign to obtain advanced TI measurements from Fraunhofer IWES's high-frequency deterministic motion compensation method. The campaign also involved a land-based Lidar measurement and wind modelling.

Following its certification as Stage 3 in 2024, the Floating Lidar System (FLS) developed, manufactured and operated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES, is the first FLS to achieve Stage 3+ under the third version of the OWA Roadmap (2025). This milestone demonstrates refined accuracy and the capacity to deliver viable Turbulence Intensity (TI) measurements.

Cleaner water in the Aller river, in groundwater, and in agricultural areas – that is the goal of a joint project between Wolfsburg’s wastewater treatment facilities and the Fraunhofer Institutes UMSICHT and ISI. This is to be achieved with the help of a fourth treatment stage at the Wolfsburg-Stahlberg wastewater treatment plant. For the first time, the combination of membrane filtration with a regenerable adsorbent resin stage and activated carbon will be tested. This is expected to eliminate trace substances much more effectively and efficiently in the future. Concurrently, measures at Wolfsburg Hospital will reduce pollution from X-ray contrast agents.

Fraunhofer ISIT has initiated field testing activities for a modular medium-voltage multilevel converter (MMC) developed within the AC2DC-II project. On 17 February 2026, two research containers were transported and installed at the Faculty of Engineering of Kiel University (CAU), where they will serve as a medium-voltage test environment until July 2027. The container-based infrastructure enables validation of converter technologies under realistic grid conditions. The units were previously used in a medium-voltage grid analysis project by CAU and HAW Kiel and have now been repurposed for AC2DC-II testing.

Intelligent storage technologies are needed to ensure the success of the energy transition. Thermal storage systems can efficiently store heat from renewable energies. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE is conducting research into the use of 3D printing technology to manufacture thermal energy storage systems from ultra-high-performance concrete. The institute is collaborating with partners from industry and research to achieve this goal.

Failures in modern energy systems generate extreme short-circuit currents. Conventional shutdown methods are often no longer able to adequately protect new types of systems with semiconductor inverters and high power density. The GreenGridGuard project has developed an innovative, semiconductor-based protection concept: In the event of failure, it forces a permanent short circuit in less than 1 millisecond, safely switches off the inverter, and prevents plasma leaks. This improves protection and grid connection. The Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS contributed its expertise in materials diagnostics and method development for new power electronics solutions.

Starting today, Dr. Klemens Ilse will head the Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics CSP together with Prof. Dr. Ralph Gottschalg and Dr. Frank Zobel. The 35-year-old physicist will continue to lead the "Materials for H2Technologies" group. With this addition to the management team, Fraunhofer CSP will have additional leadership capacity for strategic development.

On 29 September, the first public megawatt charging system (MCS) for battery-electric trucks in Germany was ceremoniously switched on at the Lipperland Süd service station in the presence of Christian Hirte, the Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Transport. This is part of the HoLa project, “HoLa – High-performance charging for long-haul trucking”, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and the EU. This marked a decisive step toward emission-free long-haul trucking that was taken together with representatives from science, industry, and research.

In the "WindKI" research project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES and the AI company LATODA are developing a new method that detects performance losses in wind turbines at an early stage. The aim of the multi-year project is to implement an AI-supported diagnostic system that will enable objective and data-driven performance optimization of the turbines. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space.