Institute of Environmental Technology and Energy Economics

Welcome, bienvenido and salem aleikum at the Institute of Environmental Engineering and Energy Economics (IUE). We are a research-oriented institute dedicated to the conservation of natural resources and the environment. With approximately 30 employees, we operate within the working group "Efficient Energy Systems and Production Processes," under the direction of Professor Kaltschmitt.

The Institute of Environmental Engineering and Energy Economics (IUE) primarily deals with issues concerning environmental technology and assessment, particularly in processes related to the provision of fossil and renewable energy sources, industrial and commercial production processes, and technology-induced environmental processes. This interplay between applied methods and procedures on one hand, and substantive areas on the other, results in a multitude of questions addressed at the institute.

Key areas of research:

  • Provision of solid, liquid, and gaseous energy carriers, as well as electricity and heat from biomass through thermo-chemical, physical-chemical, and bio-chemical conversion processes.
  • Geothermal electricity and heat generation.
  • Integration of renewable energies into conventional energy systems.

Within the field of energy provision processes, environmental technology endeavors encompass the development of technologies such as straw combustion systems, filters for reducing particulate emissions from biomass combustion, and remote monitoring systems for biogas plants. Questions relating to technology assessment include the evaluation of biomass gasification processes (process assessment), the development of life cycle assessments for geothermal electricity generation (environmental assessment), ecotoxicological studies of particulate matter from biomass combustion (ecotoxicological assessment), and the energy-economic analysis of alternatives compared to conventional fuels.