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Panoramic view on the North Campus © Jürgen Huhn​/​TU Dortmund
PROFESSOR REHTANZ OF TU DORTMUND UNIVERSITY IS PROJECT SPOKESPERSON

University Alliance Ruhr Establishes New Competence Field in Energy System Transformation

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Prof. Christian Rehtanz in a laboratory. © Martina Hengesbach
Professor Christian Rehtanz of TU Dortmund University is the spokesperson of the EST project, which has over 70 researchers at the three UA Ruhr universities.
The Coordination Committee of the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr) has decided to establish a new competence field: “Energy – System – Transformation” (EST). Over 70 professors as well as doctoral researchers from TU Dortmund University, Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) and the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) will work together for an initial five years towards accelerating the energy system transformation. Spokesperson is Professor Christian Rehtanz, Director of the Institute of Energy Systems, Energy Efficiency and Energy Economics at TU Dortmund University.

“Teaching and research in the EST competence field is interdisciplinary,” says Professor Rehtanz. “The aim is to propel the energy system transformation in a holistic way through selected new technologies in the areas of energy conversion, power transmission and efficient use of energy.” In doing so, the process of transforming the energy landscape must be socially manageable, acceptable and economically feasible as well as have a sound legal basis. That is why the competence field unites different players: Experts from the natural sciences, economics, sociology and spatial planning as well as from technical and legal disciplines are all working together.

“What is special is that we in the UA Ruhr have at our disposal researchers in all these really very different fields. They will all work together on the important topic of the energy system transformation,” says Professor Rehtanz. The objective of research and teaching in this competence field is to achieve the agreed European and global climate protection targets in the coming decades.

New perspectives thanks to system-oriented approach 

The competence field focuses on four main aspects: Security of supply, environmental compatibility, economic efficiency and acceptance by the general public. This necessitates a system-oriented approach which stretches from fundamentally new technologies and their application to economic and legal questions to an acceptable implementation in situ and in society.

Professor Rehtanz’s fellow EST coordinator at TU Dortmund University is Professor Klaus Joachim Grigoleit from the Faculty of Spatial Planning. Coordinators at UDE are Professor Jutta Geldermann and Professor Klaus Görner, both from the Faculty of Engineering, and Professor Christoph Weber from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. Professor Johann-Christian Pielow and legal expert Katrin Schlegel, both from the Institute for Mining and Energy Law, and Professor Roland Span from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering are the coordinators at RUB.

Close collaboration with industrial partners in the region

Also involved in the competence field are the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology (UMSICHT), Oberhausen, the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML), Dortmund, and the GWI (institute for fuel and industrial engineering), Essen, as well as ZBT (hydrogen and fuel cell center) and IUTA (institute for environmental and energy technologies), both part of the JRF (Johannes Rau Research Association) in Duisburg, together with the RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, Essen.

There is also close collaboration in the framework of EST with important industrial partners in the region, who partly number amongst the largest in their sector in Germany and Europe. The results will be integrated into the international research landscape through a large number of partnerships worldwide, for example with South America, China, Russia and Australia, allowing solutions to be developed that do justice to the global relevance of the topic.

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