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No. 1/2006 - Vol. 25 News from Oldenburg Content Impressum News from Oldenburg 3 Experiences 12 Careers 14 News from Alumni 16 Reports from Alumni 36 Contributed articles • Managing Demand and Supply through decentralized 44 Electrification: The Case of Kenya • The Marsabit Wind-Diesel Electricity Generation System 51 Web Links 57 List of absolvents & students 58 List of staff & useful links 66 Published by: Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Faculty of Physics, Department of Energy and Semiconductor Research, Postgraduate Programme Renewable Energy—PPRE, D - 26111 Oldenburg phone: +49-441-798.3544, fax: +49-441-798.3990, e-mail: [email protected], web: http://www.ppre.de Editors of this issue: Edu Knagge, Dr. Konrad Blum Typesetting & Layout: Kay Uphoff Printing by Printing Office of the CvO University Dear friends, in a rapidly changing world, when unexpected and even disastrous turns of events hap- pen all to frequently, the Postgraduate Programme Renewable Energy and the associated Alumni Network experience a period of stability and steady development. We are glad to see old friends and new faces in the Seminar room of the Energielabor building, teaching, discussing and last but not least celebrating. Germany has experienced a wonderful sum- mer (maybe even a little bit too warm...) and a quite successful soccer world champion- ship, which allowed the world to see new aspects of the Germans and their country. One of these is a booming Renewable Energy industry, which is creating jobs and income to an unexpected degree. This industry is turning its focus more and more on world-wide busi- ness fields and thus is increasingly interested in contacts to institutions and companies in all continents. PPRE students, fresh graduates and alumni might benefit from this kind of `globalisation‘ already! We are looking forward to a special event -- the PV centered DAAD Summer School in late August 2006 (for details see link on www.ppre.de) -- and the next run of PPRE, which will be the 19th and the third with the new, three-term structure. With the hope that this newsletter reaches you in a state of good health and well-being. Sunny greetings from Oldenburg & 1 News from Oldenburg NEWS FROM OLDENBURG lished in 1973. He remained in Oldenburg for twenty years, transferring in 1993 to the Fraunhofer-Institut for solar energy systems „Postgraduate Programme Re- in Freiburg (ISE, which has approx. 400 em- newable Energy“ received Ger- ployees). In October, he was honoured with man Solar Award - the 2005 German Environmental Price, the Oldenburg Master course of stud- maximum endowed honour of its kind in Europe. Luther also founded, with other ies with world-wide acknowledg- University of Oldenburg professors, the “al- ment (press-release) ternative energy research” at the end of the 70‘s. This, during a period when the Scien- On 28th October 2005, the Oldenburg Mas- tific Community still dismissed it as unim- ter’s programme „Postgraduate Programme portant. Together with other scientists, he Renewable Energy (PPRE) „was awarded the further conceived the Energy Laboratory 2005 Solar Prize, Education Category, by the on Wechloy Campus in 1980, which is still German Society for Solar Power (DGS) today a symbol of the University’s environ- mentally focused research and central loca- Michael Golba, who is responsible for the tion for the PPRE. course of studies together with Dr. Konrad Blum, received the honour in Munich. The Dr. Juergen Parisi, director of the depart- society justified its decision with the fact ment of energy and semiconductor research that the structure of the English-language at Institute of Physics, to whose portfolio program has been unique and innovative the program belongs, explained that the since it’s inception nearly two decades ago. award was primarily the merit of Michael The master’s program is recognised world- Golba and Dr. Konrad Blum. They success- wide, with many graduates having since fully acquired accreditation for the program attained influential positions in their coun- by restructuring it to meet the new chal- tries of origin. lenges of international and interdisciplinary education. The „Postgraduate Programme“ has been offered at the University of Oldenburg since Alongside the 3 Semester PPRE Master’s 1987. It is particularly suited to engineers course, the Institute of Physics hosts the and scientists from developing countries. European Renewable Energy Master’s pro- Through universities and research institutes gram, in conjunction with seven partner from around the world, a technical network universities from five EU countries. In this of about 300 alumni from over 65 countries winter semester, 31 students from 22 coun- has developed. Through this network, alum- tries (7 Asia, 7 Europe, 2 Germany, 7 Latin ni can exchange ideas and seek support for America, 5 North America, 3 Africa) took up research and applications in various fields the M.Sc. Renewable Energy at the Univer- of renewable energy sity of Oldenburg. The founder of the program, Dr. Joachim Luther, is one of the first professors of the University of Oldenburg, which was estab- 2 News from Oldenburg International PV Summer School • Back-up Systems: Electrolyseur, Hy- 2006 at Oldenburg University drogen and Fuel Cells From August 28th to September 2nd 2006 • Policy oriented Case Studies and les- an International Summer School on Photo- sons learned from several countries voltaics takes place at Carl von Ossietzky (e.g. rural electrification strategies, University of Oldenburg. This event is pre- barriers of PV market penetration) pared and hosted by the Postgraduate Programme Renewable Energy (PPRE) and Further parts of the programme are two very sponsored by DAAD (German Academic Ex- interesting excursions. The first one leads us change Service). to Institute of Solar Energy Research which is located in Hameln (near Hannover). The This one week of workshops, lectures and second visited venue is a well known Solar excursions covering a wide range of as- Cell Production Company named Q-Cells. It pects all around Photovoltaics is part of a is based in Thalheim (near Leipzig) as part two week ALUMNI Re-Invitation – Initia- of a fast growing industrial area especially tive encouraged by DAAD. The two week hosting photovoltaic systems component Programme consists of three PV Summer manufacturers. Schools held simultaneously at the Univer- sities of Oldenburg, Kassel and Freiberg dur- And last but not least this first week in Old- ing the first week, a concerted visit of the enburg also is a perfect platform for PPRE 21st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy ALUMNI, friends of the programme and all Conference and Exhibition (http://www.pho- people interested in photovoltaics to meet tovoltaic-conference.com/) in Dresden and again, to refresh old connections, to share finally the attendance of the 3rd “Freiberg- experiences and to update knowledge in er Solartage” http://www.exphys.tu-freiberg. photovoltaics and related renewable ener- de/photovoltaics/) at Technische Unversität gy issues. Some social events all around the Bergakademie Freiberg. summer school perfect the whole thing. The first week from August 28th to Septem- PPRE staff is heavily looking forward to wel- ber 2nd at Oldenburg University is going to coming lots of nice people and good friends tackle issues in different PV-related areas as from all around the world. there are All in all we expect some 60 – 70 partici- • Material science research oriented to- pants (including about 25 Alumni coming wards PV (e.g. heterogeneous thin film directly on DAAD-ticket). Further info and solar cells, organic solar cells) the detailed programme may be seen at the link on www.ppre.de. • Systems research oriented towards PV applications (e.g. Energy meteorology, system optimised operating character- istics, grid connected and stand alone PV systems) 3 News from Oldenburg New Hydrogen Research Project as it is typical for wind and sun. The power at the University of Oldenburg can be trapped chemically by electrolysis. Reconversion happens by means of fuel Torsten Bröer, Germany - PPRE 03/04 cells. So the variations can be smoothed, and even controlled energy from renew- Around 15 years after its last Hydrogen en- able sources can be provided. Today the lat- gagement the University of Oldenburg starts ter comes mainly from fossil fuels like coal a new innovative project combining Wind or natural gas. and Hydrogen Technology. The project, known as “HyWindBalance”, addresses the A key element of HyWindBalance is to de- problem of the fluctuating and not fully pre- velop a system, which involves simulating dictable nature of wind power. It will com- and testing an optimised wind-hydrogen- bine wind with hydrogen, as energy storage, system using state of the art technique for in order to level out electricity supply. wind power prediction, loading forecast- ing and plant management. The project As wind is not a steady force, its (large-scale) will also operate a pilot system combining integration into the electricity network in- electrolyser, hydrogen storage and fuel cell creases the demand for balancing power at the Energy Laboratory of the University (which is usually generated from fossil re- of Oldenburg. A schematic of the system is sources). With the use of hydrogen, there shown below: is a potential to adjust the electricity supply from wind power to the current demand at any time: Part of the energy is stored as hy- drogen, to be re-con- verted to electricity as- and-when needed. The Wind-hydrogen- systems will provide balancing power (CO2-free!) and cover peak The project will be undertaken in coopera- load demand. They will give a new quality tion with the companies Overspeed, PLANET, to the product that wind farm operators can Energy and Meteo Systems, Projekt Ökovest offer. In a medium-term perspective, part of and ForWind.

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