Theory meets practice – We’re heading back to HTW Berlin!
The HZB’s BIPV consultancy office (BAIP) is once again coordinating and delivering the lecture series “Building-Integrated Photovoltaics”.
How can solar panels be integrated into architecture in an aesthetically pleasing and efficient way? This is precisely what our colleagues Samira Aden, Thorsten Kühn and Niklas Albinius, together with Rutger Schlatmann, will be demonstrating to Master’s students in Renewable Energy at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences during the coming summer semester.
As a BIPV consulting office, our aim is to break down barriers and disseminate knowledge. For the second time, we are shaping the summer semester with our seminar ‘Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV)’, enabling us to pass on our practical knowledge to the next generation of aspiring engineers.
Together with the students, we will delve deep into the world of solar building envelopes. In doing so, the students will work on construction project at the HZB and, in parallel with the actual planning, develop their own holistic BIPV concepts in their semester projects – ranging from technical yield simulation and building regulations checks to economic life-cycle analysis.
We are looking forward to a sunny summer semester!
- Electrocatalysts: New model for charge separation at the solid-liquid interfaceHydrogen is at the heart of the transition to carbon neutrality, as both an energy carrier and a reagent for green chemistry. However, large-scale production of hydrogen via electrolysis, as well as the production of many other chemical products, requires significantly cheaper and more efficient catalysts. A precise understanding of the electrochemical processes that take place at the interface between the solid catalyst and the liquid medium is highly useful for developing better electrocatalysts. In the journal Nature Communications, an European team has now presented a powerful model that determines charge separation at the interface, the formation of the electric double layer and local electric potential variations, and the resulting influence on the catalytic activity.
- AI-driven Catalyst Discovery: €30 million funding for German consortiumSix partners from research and industry, including Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI), BASF, Dunia Innovations, Siemens Energy, and the Technical University Berlin are launching a joint project to accelerate the catalyst discovery. The German Federal Ministry for Science, Technology and Space (BMFTR) is providing €30 million in funding for ASCEND (Accelerated Solutions for Catalysis using Emerging Nanotechnology and Digital Innovation). The research initiative targets the defossilisation of energy-intensive industries while safeguarding industrial competitiveness, with a focus on the chemical sector. The five-year project will start on 1st April 2026.
- Kick-off for a new data and AI centre in BerlinBy establishing a new data and AI centre in Berlin, the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) are laying the foundations for a scalable and sovereign data infrastructure in the capital. The project strengthens the scientific capabilities of Berlin’s research community whilst making an important contribution to research security, resilience and technological independence.