The transformation of the energy system is one of the key challenges of the coming decades – for municipalities, energy suppliers, industrial companies, and providers of integrated energy and mobility solutions alike. Anyone planning energy infrastructure today must keep an eye on supply security, economic efficiency, and climate protection all at once, and think across sectors.
Technologies for the energy transition – such as heat pumps, combined heat and power (CHP) plants, storage systems, power-to-heat, and hydrogen – are available, but their benefits are only realized through systemic interaction. Adaptation to regional conditions, existing grids, local renewable energy potential, and regulatory requirements is crucial.
Fraunhofer IFAM therefore does not view electricity, heat, mobility, and industry in isolation, but rather as an interconnected system. Based on interdisciplinary techno-economic analyses, we integrate energy-economic, technical, and business perspectives. Using scenarios, sensitivity analyses, and our own planning and simulation tools, we provide transparency regarding costs, risks, and system impacts, thereby enabling robust, well-founded decisions – ranging from building-specific neighborhood and site supply to the strategic planning of national infrastructure.
Our approach combines energy-sector modeling with spatial data and application-oriented simulation environments. This allows us to transparently compare technical options, cost pathways, and CO₂ impacts and present them to different stakeholder groups.
Key elements include:
Sector Coupling and System Optimization
Municipal heating planning and neighborhood concepts
Electric Mobility and Charging Infrastructure
Industry and Hydrogen Economy
Regulation and Efficiency Assessment
Our projects aim to produce directly applicable, practical results that serve as a basis for decision-making regarding investments and transformation. These include, in particular:
Fraunhofer IFAM brings together decades of experience in thermal planning, sector coupling, electromobility, and hydrogen technologies. Our research expertise, combined with close collaboration with local governments, industry, and energy suppliers, ensures that solutions not only work in theory but can also be implemented in practice.
Our proprietary tools, extensive databases, and experience from real-world laboratories provide a solid foundation for decision-making – from municipal planning to industrial applications.
An analysis of energy systems provides a comprehensive overview of the electricity, heating, mobility, and industrial sectors in a region. The goal is to jointly assess technologies, costs, CO₂ savings, and regulatory frameworks in order to develop robust strategies for transforming the energy system.
Sector coupling enables the flexible integration of electricity, heating, mobility, and industry – for example, through heat pumps, combined heat and power (CHP), storage systems, or hydrogen. This allows for better integration of renewable energy, reduces peak demand, and makes investments more efficient than if each infrastructure were planned in isolation.
Fraunhofer IFAM creates building-specific heat demand maps, develops decarbonization scenarios, and draws up municipal heating plans with concrete expansion roadmaps. This provides municipalities and municipal utilities with a reliable basis for decision-making regarding investments in heating networks, renewable energy generation, and energy efficiency measures.
Hydrogen is becoming particularly important for industry, heavy-duty transport, and port facilities. In its studies, Fraunhofer IFAM examines the potential for hydrogen production, transport, storage, and use, and assesses how H₂ can be integrated into regional and national energy systems.
For its analyses, Fraunhofer IFAM uses, among other tools, GIS-based heat demand maps, its own simulation environments, and the MuGriFlex tool. These enable the technical, economic, and regulatory evaluation of various system configurations, flexibility options, and transition pathways.
Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM