Intelligent energy systems

Manufacturing companies are faced with increasingly dynamic and global competition, forcing them to constantly optimize their value chain. Due to growing cost pressure in production plants, the energy factor is becoming an important control lever when it comes to cutting manufacturing costs. This brings decisive advantages in global competition. Fraunhofer IPA develops and conducts research on solutions to improve energy efficiency and flexibility. The emphasis is on developing automated and sustainable solutions for today’s and tomorrow’s manufacturing environments.

Expertise and services in energy efficiency 

For many years, Fraunhofer IPA has been working on solutions to improve efficiency in numerous fields of technology (e.g. energy systems, coating technology, surface engineering, factory design, robotics and machine construction), as well as on planning and control methods and automation technology:

• Energy indicators and benchmarking
• Load forecasting
• Automated anomaly detection to sustainably cut costs
• Direct current for production
• Energy value stream design
• Design guidelines for improving energy efficiency in production facilities
• Energy efficient production planning and control
• Efficient chip collection
• Efficient galvanic processes, systems, evaluation and operational management
• Fluid dynamic simulations to systematically optimize paint shops
• Paint application without overspray to drastically reduce conditioned air requirements
• Systemic optimization of paint materials and process technologies to lower curing temperatures

Expertise and services in energy flexibility 

A key aspect of our R&D work is developing technical and organizational solutions to improve energy flexibility in production. We examine future topics, such as micro smart grid, energy-flexible production and energy storage with a view to their industrial application:

• Potential analyses concerning flexibility and networking in production
• Production and energy data capture
• Energy and digital networks in production facilities
• Development of energy-flexible production planning and control
• Integration of energy storage systems into production plants
• Inclusion of locally-generated power in production sites
• Development and implementation of interfaces with energy markets