Researchers at Fraunhofer ISE Receive SEMIKRON Innovation Award

Researchers Dr. Olivier Stalter, Florian Reiners, Michael Eberlin and Sebastian Franz from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg received the SEMIKRON Innovation Award together with Frank Seybold from KACO new energy GmbH in Neckarsulm.

From a total of 19 applicants, the jury selected the innovative power electronics to facilitate a complete off-grid village power supply in developing and threshold countries. With this technology, the entire electricity for remote towns can be centrally generated and supplied with renewable energy.

“About 1.6 billion people in the world do not have access to electricity,” says Dr. Stalter, project leader. “Since most of these countries are located in the Earth’s Sun Belt, solar electricity is an obvious solution that has become more attractive in the past years due to the decrease in the price of photovoltaic (PV) modules. Up to now, such solar PV systems were limited to low powers of about 100 watts. Our system applies the newest technological developments of the industrial nations to meet the needs of remote village communities and larger consumers such as hospitals or smaller firms.”

The system components developed at Fraunhofer ISE consist for the most part of a stand-alone 125 kW inverter and a 51 kW charger for battery voltages up to 1000 volt. The inverter operates with an efficiency of up to 98% and the charger with up to 99%, respectively.

The SEMIKRON Innovation Award is bestowed for excellent innovation in projects, prototypes, services and novel concepts in the field of power electronics in Europe.