The ground-breaking ceremony on June 7, 2023 marks the start of construction for a research building with over 3,400 square meters of floor space. The Fraunhofer Center for Energy Storage and Systems ZESS stands for the development of system solutions for energy storage and hydrogen technologies. The three research partners, the Fraunhofer Institute IFAM, the Fraunhofer Institute IST and the Fraunhofer Institute IKTS, will receive the new institute building at Braunschweig Research Airport to implement these goals.
The Fraunhofer ZESS was launched four years ago. Since then, researchers from the three Fraunhofer Institutes have been conducting research and development in the premises of the Lower Saxony Research Center for Automotive Engineering NFF in cooperation with the TU Braunschweig and in the Lilienthalhaus at Braunschweig-Wolfsburg Research Airport.
The institute focuses on the following key areas: Lithium solid-state batteries, stationary storage, hydrogen technologies and testing technologies.
The state of Lower Saxony and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft are providing €20 million in start-up funding
20 million is available as start-up funding from the state of Lower Saxony and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. The new building will create the infrastructure and research platform required for the development and implementation of future energy storage systems, from prototype to industrialization, and will provide space for over 100 employees. The Fraunhofer ZESS currently employs 75 people, over 50 of whom are already based at the Braunschweig site. The costs for the new building and the associated initial equipment amount to around €46 million, which will be provided by the federal government and the state of Lower Saxony.
Scientists will be able to use the new research facility from 2025.
