DTU Energy professor to advise large German research effort within energy conversion technologies.
Technologies to store surplus electricity from sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar power will be of decisive importance in the future energy system. This is becoming apparent to an increasing number of politicians and industry leaders across the world. Now Germany takes a major step forward with Kopernikus, a ten-year research program of 400 million euro, in which researchers and industry will work closely together to find the technological solutions to support the transition to a sustainable energy system.
The Kopernikus project has four major focus areas: the infrastructure of the electricity grid, industrial processes, systems integration, and – not least – technologies for the storage of surplus electricity. The latter area, “Power-to-X”, aims to make it possible to store more than 90% of the surplus electricity from sustainable energy sources in the form of either chemical compounds, hydrogen and other gaseous energy carriers, or in the form of liquid fuels.
DTU Energy has extensive, internationally recognized knowledge and experience within these research topics. Accordingly, it was natural for the Kopernikus project to ask professor Anke Hagen, an expert within solid oxide fuel cells and electrolysis cells (SOFC/SOEC), to join the scientific advisory board for Power-to-X. Anke Hagen states: “It is an important recognition of our research effort to be asked to advise on such a major effort. The Kopernikus project also underlines the great industrial and societal importance of sustainable energy technologies. I can only hope that Danish politicians will prove to be as visionary, making it possible to keep our international standing within sustainable energy solutions which will benefit both Danish industry and Danish society.”
Kopernikus is named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, and its ambitious goal is to contribute to as large a paradigm shift within sustainable energy as Copernicus did within astronomy with his heliocentric model of the Solar system. The focus area Power-to-X has the participation of 62 German research institutions, companies and organizations. Like the rest of the project it will run until 2025.