Partners and Sponsors

Europäischer Fonds für regionale Entwicklung

Image: Europäischer Fonds für regionale Entwicklung

Innovation Center CEEC Jena

The Thuringian Innovation Center CEEC Jena is funded by the Free State of Thuringia under the numbers 2022 IZN 0013 and 2022 IZN 0013 and co-financed by funds from the European Union within the framework of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)External link. Previously, it was funded under the 2016 IZN 0009 project.

Logo European Regional Development Fund

Image: European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)

The CEEC Jena Innovation Center offers research and development services as well as education and training in three areas – light-energy conversion, energy storage and clean tech. The grant application concerned the current activities and characteristics of the CEEC Jena in the field of energy storage.

Innovative energy storage technologies are an important element for the success of the energy transition in Germany and for future value creation as an industrial nation in a large number of product areas. The CEEC Jena is specialized in developing next-generation batteries ("Beyond Lithium Batteries") in a holistic research approach that ranges from application-oriented basic research to prototyping. In contrast to competing approaches, the research at the CEEC Jena aims at the replacement of metals (for example, cobalt in lithium batteries or rare earths in nickel-metal hybrid batteries) by environmentally friendly alternatives made of polymers (plastics) or ceramics.

The scientific, economic and social potential of innovative battery systems – from small printable polymer batteries to sodium ion batteries and large stationary energy storage devices (for example, polymer redox flow batteries) – has been confirmed by numerous studies by renowned experts. The CEEC Jena was able to successfully establish itself in this segment and has a clear development concept in order to exploit the opportunities offered by the energy transition for the region. The CEEC Jena thus supports the objectives defined in the framework of the Regional Research and Innovation Strategy (RIS 3 Thuringia). On the one hand, the goal is to build up and expand the scientific top positions and, at the same time, create the conditions to build up complete production and value chains for battery systems in Thuringia and Germany.