About us
With more than sixty scientists, employees in technology and administration, and other student workers, the Institute for Energy Efficient Buildings and Indoor Climate has its research focus on the reduction of energy demand to create thermally comfortable interiors.
In addition to the main consideration of buildings, vehicle interiors are also investigated. The coupling of measures on the building exterior and system technology to increase the energy efficiency of buildings lies within the context of energetic district approaches with the linkage of thermal and electrical networks. For the development of decentralized energy supply concepts with integration of renewable energy sources, concepts of generation-, load-, and storage-management with intelligent communication between all components are devised.
The work of the institute is based on comprehensive test equipment and advanced simulation methods, as well as the coupling of simulation and real hardware.
The research work is spread over seven research teams, involving interdisciplinary cooperation:
- Digital Energy Neighbourhoods
- Urban Energy Systems
- Building Automation
- Occupant Behaviour and Comfort
- Building Energy Systems
- Ventilation Systems
- Refrigerant Cycles
The implementation of the so called Energiewende and the challenges for viable and sustainable cities require living environments to be seen as a whole system. Residents and their surrounding technology are increasingly interacting with one another. Data is collected more extensively and flexibly made available via data clouds. In the interdisciplinary cooperation Sense - Smart Energy Services with the Institute of Automation of Complex Power Systems of the Energy Research Center, we are working with a dedicated software-developing group on the interface of thermal and electrical networks. New services are created for improved energy efficiency and comfort. In the interdisciplinary cooperation Humans in Buildings with institutes from civil engineering and architecture, we get a better insight to the user and the user's behaviour. The common lab space pursues the goal of common system concepts with intelligent adaptation to the needs of the user.
Within the lab area, which is already more than 1,000 m² in size, we can rely on a large number of test benches . The mechanical and electrical workshop of the research center allows us to adapt the test benches to new needs in a timely manner.
In addition to the test benches, we are equipped with state-of-the-art hardware technology, which allows us to examine, develop and evaluate new concepts in combination with different simulation methods and our own simulation libraries.
Further are we abel to conduct extensive research on Components and Systems trough Model-, Software- and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) testing.