KIT Boosts Solar Power for Research

New 660 kWp rooftop PV system at Campus North powers energy research and computing infrastructure with clean electricity
The photovoltaic system on the roof of the Institute for Automation and Applied Informatics is currently the largest PV installation at KIT. Amadeus Bramsiepe, KIT
In fall 2025, KIT commissioned around 1,500 new PV modules with 660 kWp at its Campus North.

By expanding sustainable energy generation, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is advancing toward a climate‑neutrality. Since autumn 2025, around 1,500 new photovoltaic modules installed on the rooftops of the Institute for Automation and Applied Informatics (IAI) and the Scientific Computing Center (SCC) at KIT’s Campus North have been generating electricity for the site’s infrastructure. With a total capacity of 660 kWp, the system not only provides climate-friendly energy but also serves as a research environment for innovative energy concepts.

PV Electricity for Energy Research and GridKa

“Research into the grid impacts of local PV feed-in is one of the many topics being investigated at the KIT Energy Lab,” says Professor Veit Hagenmeyer, spokesperson for the Energy Lab at KIT and Director of IAI. “For this purpose, we operate a network of numerous measurement units at KIT’s Campus North that continuously record data on local grid conditions.” The newly installed system, for example, supplies electricity and measurement data for the FlexBlue project, which is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE). In this project, researchers are investigating how cooling supply systems can be flexibly and efficiently operated using solar power. A demonstrator at the IAI combines the PV system with a battery storage unit, a compression refrigeration machine, and an actively controllable cold buffer storage system based on phase-change materials.

Most of the electricity generated is used directly by KIT to sustainably operate facilities at the SCC, including the Tier-1 data center GridKa for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, as well as KIT’s core IT infrastructure, up to and including the AI toolbox. Professor Achim Streit, Director of the Scientific Computing Center (SCC), explains: “Operating GridKa with PV electricity enables us to address entirely new research questions in energy-efficient computing.”

mhe, February 5, 2026