FOCUS
Energy

Jülich’s energy research relies on an energy system defined by renewable energies. The scientists research technologies on all scales from the atomic level to industrial innovation, thus covering the entire value chain between basic and applied research. In battery research, this holistic, systemic approach is applied to electrochemical processes up to complete battery cells. Jülich is also pursuing a value-added chain in the research into technologies for storing excess electricity in high-energy chemicals, for example for use as fuel. In the future, the area of modelling and simulation will also be expanded, for example in order to specifically design materials. As the energy transition is leading to an increasingly decentralised supply network, the vision is to develop simulation tools for urban energy systems that can be upscaled to cover the dimension of cities and even megacities.

At Jülich, techniques for producing, converting and storing energy, for energy transport and the reconversion into electricity at the consumer are being researched in a multidisciplinary manner. Jülich’s research topics complement each other, such as the energy meteorology of climate researchers, for example, which uses atmospheric measurements and simulations to investigate how air quality and climate change are affected by the use of renewable energy sources and how local weather forecasts can be used to manage an altered energy system.