CER.UDE – Center for Energy Research

The Aim of CER.UDE:

 

Providing energy in a clean, affordable, and sustainable manner while ensuring that supply continues to meet demand is one of the greatest challenges our society faces today. If we fail to develop solutions quickly, massive decreases in living standards and political conflicts over resources will be impossible to avoid. Technologies that are currently available will not achieve these goals, and it is unlikely that one single technology will ever meet future energy needs. Interdisciplinary collaboration is and will remain necessary to develop and pursue a variety of new solutions.

The Center for Energy Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen (CER.UDE) brings together diverse activities in energy research from the natural sciences, engineering, economics, and the humanities. Associated research institutes and industrial partners also play an important role by helping to ensure that viable technologies are developed and transferring findings from the laboratory into real-world applications. CER.UDE’s mission is to make a significant and meaningful contribution to the creation of a sustainable energy system that is environmentally friendly, reliable, low risk, economically viable, and widely accepted by the general public.

Energy research at CER.UDE spans a diverse range of topics and approaches, from the study of elementary processes and the development of new materials to the creation of optimized distribution networks. Increasing the efficiency of existing technologies also requires basic research and development. Finally, the subject of energy requires the investigation of complex economic and societal-issues, as energy use and supply is largely determined by economic structures and the everyday behavior of individuals.

On the following pages of this homepage, the four main research focus areas of CER.UDE will be presented. Each area uses a toolbox of different methods, ranging from basic experiments on the laboratory scale and the development of materials and components to the study of distribution networks, pilot plants, and full-scale power plants. Parallel to these efforts, explorations of the theory, modeling, and simulation of energy conversion processes—as well as practical energy systems— the creation of tools based on proven theories that will help convert results from basic research to applications The development of complex scenarios using methodologies from form the social sciences and economics plays an important role in the commercialization of new technologies.