Solar Powers e.V.

About us

Solar Powers is a nonprofit organization and at the same time a student project of the "Energieseminar" at the Tecnical University (TU) of Berlin. Solar Powers originated from the project seminar "Renewables for the TU - a feasibility study".

"The TU Berlin has many buildings with unused roof surfaces and at the same time a high energy demand. Since the turnaround of the energy policy in general precedes rather faltering, we want to be a active part in transforming our university. We stand up for ensuring that the largest possible part of the university's energy requirement is provided by renewable energy. For this we call a pilot project to life, to prove the viability of a extensive photovoltaic system. "(Project description of the feasibility study, project the Energieseminar in the summer semester 2014)

With this motivation, 25 students came together and worked together in an interdisciplinary team to get closer to the goal of renewable power for the TU Berlin. The outcome of the seminar was as follows:

"The TU Berlin has many highly suitable roof surfaces for the installation of photovoltaik panels on campus Charlottenburg. 16 were looked at closely, leading to a potential total surface area of 28780 m². This corresponds to seven football fields, completely filled with PV panels. On this surface an annual electricity production of up to 3,344 MWh could be achieved. This corresponds to approximately 6% of the electricity consumption of the TU Berlin. " (Extract from the flyer "Solar Power", as of September 2014)

These findings were presented to the presidential board and other employees at the TU Berlin as a complete success in the fall of 2014. The president Prof. Dr. Thomsen gave us his personal commitment that the TU Berlin supports our projects, the construction department will assign us an appropriate roof for the construction of a photovoltaic system and accompany us during the process of implementation.
On this basis, further steps towards the implementation of the project could be done in the following semester. In October 2014 launched the follow-up project "Solar Power":

"To show how rewarding such a development would be, we are planning a pilot project of a small system. It has resulted in the fall of 2014, that we may use about 500 m² of the roof of the Volkswagen University Library at Fasanenstrasse 88 for this pilot project. "(Excerpt from the Project for Solar Powers, project the energy seminar in the winter semester 2014/15)

The seminar went directly to the concrete implementation of the developed idea. The association Solar Powers e.V. was founded, the system was planned, we negotiated terms of a contract with the Legal Department of the Technical University, created a website, engaged in public relations and created first contacts with potential sponsors.
Since the spring of 2015 a small group of former participants work on putting the plan into action.