When he and a colleague founded the Solar Institute Jülich (SIJ) in 1992, Professor Klemens Schwarzer was ridiculed as a utopian. Nuclear energy was the measure of all things. Today, many private households have their own small solar power plant to generate energy.
Back then, the prophet was more important in faraway lands. For example, solar-powered systems that desalinate seawater were developed for the sunny but dry regions of North Africa.
One of these smaller systems is now located in Oujda, Morocco, and supplies 50 families with fresh water. Other international projects were solar systems for schools or hospitals in third world countries or solar heating systems for buildings in the Andes.
However, the SIJ’s most important project is the Jülich solar thermal test power plant, the so-called solar tower. It was the first power plant of its kind in the world. The aim is to develop better storage technologies in order to reduce the operating costs of power plants.
Not least because of the SIJ, Jülich is now regarded as a Mecca for solar research.
For over 30 years now, the SIJ has been working on innovative, application-oriented developments in the fields of renewable and efficient energy use in direct cooperation with industry, universities and research institutions. Its activities focus on solar thermal systems, energy storage and hydrogen, efficient building and plant technology and intelligent energy supply.
