Monday, April 14, 2008

MIT partners with Fraunhofer on alternative energy institute

The MIT Energy Initiative and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative have launched a new joint project with the Fraunhofer Institute, a German R&D organization, that will be based in Massachusetts and will focus on developing and commercializing sustainable energy systems.

Electricity provider National Grid has also signed on to the project, acting as the principal utility member of the center's Partnership with Industry segment, and committing $1 million over the next five years to the project.

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) has allocated $5 million to fund the startup of the institute, to be named the MIT-Fraunhofer Institute for Sustainable Energy Systems.

According to published reports, the center will be located adjacent to the MIT campus in Cambridge.

About 60 jobs could initially be created by the institute, and officials hope some of the technologies developed there could eventually be licensed to other firms or spun out of the center to generate revenue.

The center is expected to initially focus on solar energy, green buildings and energy device prototyping, eventually expanding into other technologies in the future.

Aside from MIT and representatives from the MTC and the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the center will also be operated by Michigan-based Fraunhofer USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. That European research agency, which is partially funded by the German government, maintains more than 80 research units at more than 40 different locations throughout Germany, and a staff of some 12,700 scientists and engineers working on a variety of technologies, from solar power to lasers. The firm's Institute for Solar Energy Systems is the largest solar research lab in Europe.