JARA-ENERGY - Research for a Secure Environmentally Friendly Energy Supply

JARA-ENERGY (Sustainable Energy Experiments) is dedicated to investigating sustainable, i.e. efficient, resource-conserving, environmentally compatible, and safe, energy production, use and optimization.

The more than 2,500 employees working at over 50 institutes within JARA-ENERGY are united by the objective of securing the future energy supply and mobility in an economically viable way and of thus protecting the environment and safeguarding the climate. The researchers do not restrict themselves to merely seeking possibilities for generating useful energy in a more climate-friendly way.

They are also working on low-loss techniques for transporting and storing energy and on energy technologies for cars and other mobile applications as well as the domestic energy supply.

Furthermore, the researchers are concerned with investigating cross-programme activities such as new materials, on which progress in energy technology often depends.

JARA-ENERGY employs numerous measures to link the wide range of expertise embodied in its members. New research fields are supported by seed funds. Junior professorships provide support for new topics in the fields of applied interface electrochemistry as well as energy resource and innovation economics. Large units of the electrical energy supply system, such as battery storage systems, electrolysers, wind energy converters, turbines, and direct current grids at various research institutes, are linked in a JARA facility as a demonstrator for a future decentralized energy supply, thus providing unique research and demonstration opportunities.

Activities at JARA-ENERGY are structured in three main pillars:

Systems – examination and optimization of energy systems

Processes – focusing on process engineering and production methods

Materials – development and investigation of new materials for use in electricity generation and storage

The researchers' expertise encompasses basic research as well as its application and spans the entire value chain and all energy technologies.