“Germany mustn’t lose sight of its ambitious goals”
Prof. Dr. Bernd Rech is the scientific director of the HZB and currently the vice-president for the research area energy in the Helmholtz Association. © David Ausserhofer / HZB
The Science Year 2025 is dedicated to the topic of ‘Future Energy’ and the Helmholtz Association is conducting cutting-edge research in this field. An interview with Bernd Rech, Vice-President Energy of the Helmholtz Association and Scientific Director at HZB, on topics such as: Where does Germany stand with the restructuring of its energy system? What contribution can research make? And what about hydrogen, nuclear energy and nuclear fusion, and the new challenges for a secure supply in times of cyber attacks?
Where does Germany stand in terms of restructuring its energy system?
In Germany, we are making great strides in transforming our energy system. For example, 60 percent of our electricity now comes from renewable sources, compared to less than five percent in 1990. Thanks to new technologies, we’re working much more efficiently than just a few decades ago. This is another reason why CO2 emissions in Germany have been significantly reduced. Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions have essentially been cut in half since 1990. Economic growth has been decoupled from energy consumption. However, there is still a great deal of work to be done, because climate change persists and three quarters of all global CO2 emissions are connected to energy demand. In Germany, renewables now account for 20 percent of our total primary energy consumption. So, there’s still a lot to be done – especially in the areas of transport, industry and heating.
Please read the full interview on the webpage of Helmholtz Association:
https://www.helmholtz.de/en/newsroom/article/germany-mustnt-lose-sight-of-its-ambitious-goals/
- Lithium-sulphur batteries with lean electrolyte: problem areas clarifiedUsing a non-destructive method, a team at HZB investigated practical lithium-sulphur pouch cells with lean electrolyte for the first time. With operando neutron tomography, they could visualise in real-time how the liquid electrolyte distributes and wets the electrodes across multilayers during charging and discharging. These findings offer valuable insights into the cell failure mechanisms and are helpful to design compact Li-S batteries with a high energy density in formats relevant to industrial applications.
- Berlin Science Award goes to Philipp AdelhelmBattery researcher Prof. Dr. Philipp Adelhelm has been awarded the 2024 Berlin Science Award. He is a professor at the Institute of Chemistry at Humboldt University in Berlin (HU) and heads a joint research group at HU and the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB). The materials scientist and electrochemist is investigating sustainable batteries, which play a key role in the success of the energy transition. He is one of the leading international experts in the field of sodium-ion batteries.
- Long-term test shows: Efficiency of perovskite cells varies with the seasonScientists at HZB run a long-term experiment on the roof of a building at the Adlershof campus. They expose a wide variety of solar cells to the weather conditions, recording their performance over a period of years. These include perovskite solar cells, a new photovoltaic material offering high efficiency and low manufacturing costs. Dr Carolin Ulbrich and Dr Mark Khenkin evaluated four years of data and presented their findings in Advanced Energy Materials. This is the longest series of measurements on perovskite cells in outdoor use to date. The scientists found that standard perovskite solar cells perform very well during the summer months, even over several years, but decline in efficiency during the darker months.