Electricity is essential in today’s society at both the private and the business level. With a proportion of around 20 percent of overall energy demand, electricity is of central importance in the energy sector. Despite constant efficiency gains, electricity demand is set to increase sharply again due to the increasing decarbonisation in the transport (e.g. e-mobility) and heating (e.g. heat pumps) sectors.
This means that additional efficiency gains in the fields of electricity production, distribution and consumption will be decisive. In addition, storage technologies help balance the fluctuating production over differing timeframes and thus contribute towards a secure future energy supply.
The Electricity Technologies research programme makes a contribution towards a substantial and sustainable efficiency increase, as well as towards research on new storage technologies. Additional synergy effects are obtained thanks to close coordination with the Networks research programme.
The main strategic objectives include efficient energy conversion with new wide band gap power electronics, plus the technological conversion of heat into electricity and efficiency improvements in selected areas of application. Here the main focus is on electrical machines, and on appliances and systems (including digitisation) in information technology and communication. In addition, studies are to be carried out on specific new electromechanical storage technologies.
