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Which infrastructures are needed for cost efficient smart grid integration of energy consumers with controllable loads and prosumers with renewable generators? The challenge to answer this question was taken by an interna-tional consortium with participation of Fraunhofer IEE in the last three and a half years in a research- and demonstration project, which was funded by the European Union with 11.7 Mio. €. The final results were presented to the pub-lic at July 25th 2018 in Valencia, Spain.

Since its founding in 2009, the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology IWES has grown to almost 600 employees. As part of their strategic development and alignment, both divisions of the institute have developed largely independent profiles. The Executive Board and Senate of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have therefore decided to continue the branches of the institute as independent institutes as of January 2018: as IEE and IWES. For customers and industry partners, the sharpening of the profile will facilitate a clear allocation of activities.

An important technical step for a new smart grid laboratory at Cepel in Brazil has been successfully designed by Cepel together with the German Fraunhofer Institutes IWES in Kassel and FOKUS in Berlin. This laboratory will be able to assess the interoperability between all system components and compliance with relevant standards. Several test areas have been developed for equipment and hybrid systems with decentralized energy resource components. The setup of this national reference laboratory in the region of Rio de Janeiro can now go ahead.

The IEA Wind TCP published the new »recommended practice 17«. It leads the user to individually appropriate solutions for wind farm data collection and reliability assessment for O&M optimization. It is primarily directed at operators and service providers, but all identified stakeholder groups will benefit from the adoption of this best practice.

»Wind energy has become an integral part of the energy supply. A new milestone for the transformation of energy supply systems was reached last year with renewable energy now accounting for 29 percent of the gross energy consumption. That is more than the conventional nuclear and brown coal power plants. With 80 TWh, wind energy’s contribution to the gross German energy generation is now 12.4 percent whilst nuclear energy lies at 13 percent. Energy production with offshore wind energy plants is gathering speed« says Prof Dr Kurt Rohrig, editor of the new »Germany Wind Energy Report 2016« published by the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy Systems Technology in Kassel, as he outlines the significance of wind energy.

The growing market in power supply and drive technologies needs cost-efficient and robust power electronic converters. Together with industrial partners Infineon Technologies AG and SUMIDA Components & Modules GmbH, Fraunhofer scientists have researched for three years in the project IFASS to this end.

Storm or calm, dark clouds or blue skies - wind turbines and photovoltaic systems supply more or less energy to the grid depending on weather conditions. A big challenge for transmission grid operators is having to forecast the amount of supplied energy as accurately as possible in order to maintain a stable grid. Fraunhofer IWES in Kassel, together with the German Meteorological Service (DWD) in Offenbach, has thus developed mathematical models as part of the EWeLiNE project, which enables significantly improved predictions than the traditional procedure. The partners have now completed the BMWi sponsored project which started at the end 2012.

Scientists at Fraunhofer IWES in Kassel aim to contribute to further cost reduc-tions in wind energy use. They will present results of an large scale expert sur-vey on future cost reduction potential, a simulation model on the failure char-acteristics of wind turbines and recommended practices for reliability data in-cluding an own seminar at the Wind Europe Summit 2016 in Hamburg, the world's largest wind energy event.

The University of Kassel and the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology (IWES) have started a joint international Masters study programme "Online M.Sc. Wind Energy Systems". The course content is offered entirely online and in English.

Auf der gerade gestarteten IAA in Frankfurt präsentiert das Fraunhofer IWES aus Kassel im Rahmen der „Fraunhofer-Systemforschung Elektromobilität“ zwei Produkte: ein Hardware-in-the-Loop-Batteriesimulationssystem und ein induktives Ladesystem für Elektroautos.