Basis for Project Funding: The 7th Energy Research Programme
As a strategic element of energy policy, energy research funding is geared to the political goals of the Federal Government. The German government's energy concept envisages a far-reaching restructuring of Germany's energy supply by 2045. The main goal is to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 100 percent compared with 1990 levels by increasing energy efficiency and at the same time increasing the share of renewable energies.
In order to achieve these goals and lead the energy system transformation to success, it is on the one hand necessary to continuously further develop existing technologies and on the other hand to create and make available new technical and non-technical innovations. Social requirements are of particular importance in this context. The 7th Energy Research Programme of the four ministries responsible for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), Food and Agriculture (BMEL), Education and Research (BMBF) and Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) addresses pressing issues of the future and derives key energy research policy goals from them. It was published on 19.09.2018.
In the run-up to the publication, the Federal Government had conducted a wide-ranging consultation process under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWK) in which it asked numerous actors from research and industry, associations and civil society what steps they considered necessary in order to master the common challenges of energy system transformation.
Generate power from different resources
The research areas presented on this page fall into the area of so-called conversion technologies: technologies that use a resource such as wind energy, solar radiation or coal to generate electricity from its natural power. Research funding, especially in the field of renewable energies and energy storage, is to be stabilised by the 7th Energy Research Programme; the individual areas are to be further developed in a technology-open manner. The digitisation of industrial processes and the associated generation and distribution of energy plays an important role in this.