Mapping and Quantifying Innovation Gaps for Sustainable Energy Systems

Forschungsthema/Bereich

Energiewende und Energietechnologien

Typ der Abschlussarbeit

Master

Startzeitpunkt

01.09.2026

Bewerbungsschluss

15.08.2026

Dauer der Arbeit

6 Monate

Beschreibung

Topic description:
Achieving climate neutrality until 2045 needs more advanced energy technologies. However, the gap between the future technological needs and todays matureness of technologies has to be clarified / revealed.
The aim of the thesis is to identify so-called Innovation Gaps, i.e. the hurdles technological solutions see to penetrate markets successfully. These hurdles could be limited technology scaling, infrastructure and system integration, costs and financing, critical raw materials, regulation, or societal acceptance. The thesis shall identify qualitatively and, where possible, quantitatively and discuss these “innovation gaps” for to be se-lected technologies (e.g. storage, Power‑to‑X) and link them to key di-mensions such as efficiency, costs, material requirements and environ-mental impacts.
The thesis will be carried out at the Institute for Technology Assessment and System Analysis (ITAS), Institute for Industrial Production (IIP) and the Institute for Automation and Applied Informatics (IAI).
Tasks:
In particular, the work comprises the following tasks:
• Review of existing literature and reports on innovation gaps and scenario studies (IEA, OECD, IRENA, KIT/Helmholtz) to identify relevant indicators (e.g. efficiency, costs, environment impacts) to operationalize “innovation gaps”.
• Qualitative linking of these indicators to existing scenario or model results at KIT and simple, transparent sensitivity or threshold analysis (what values would be required for scenario relevance?)
• Identification and structured documentation of innovation gaps for the selected technologies

Voraussetzung

Voraussetzungen an Studierende

• Qualification:
• Students of industrial engineering, civil engineering, chemical engi-neering, or similar disciplines
• • Good technical understanding of energy technologies (Electricity and heat conversion)
• • Initial experience with scenario analysis, technoeconomic as-sessment and/or life cycle approaches assessment is advanta-geous
• • Skilled in MS-Office (Excel and Word), first experience machine learning or AI-based tools for literature review
• • Very good English skills
• • Organised and reliable, working independently and self-motivated.

Studiengangsbereiche

• Ingenieurwissenschaften
  Bioingenieurwesen
  Chemieingenieurwesen & Verfahrenstechnik
  Elektrotechnik & Informationstechnik
  Informatik
  Materialwissenschaft & Werkstofftechnik
  Mechatronik & Informationstechnik
  Optics & Photonics
  Sonstige Studienbereiche
  Funktionaler und konstruktiver Ingenieurbau
  Mobilität und Infrastruktur
  Regionalwissenschaft/Raumplanung
  Water Science Engineering
  Mechanical Engineering
  Energy Engineering and Management
  Mobility Systems Engineering and Management
  Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics
  Management of Product Development
  Information System Engineering and Management
  Technologie und Management im Baubetrieb
  Biomedical Engineering
  Computer Science
  Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
  Mechatronics and Information Technology
  Photon Science and Technology
• Naturwissenschaften und Technik
  Physik
  Sonstige Studienbereiche
  Angewandte Umweltinformatik und Erbeobachtung
  Computational and Data Sience
  Wirtschaftsmathematik
• Sonstiges z.B. Lehramt
  Sonstige Studienbereiche
• Wirtschafts- und Rechtswissenschaften
  Wirtschaftsinformatik
  Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen
  Sonstige Studienbereiche
  Digital Economics

Betreuung

Titel, Vorname, Name

Dr. Manuel Baumann

Organisationseinheit

Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse (ITAS)

E-Mail Adresse

manuel.baumann@kit.edu

Link zur eigenen Homepage/Personenseite

Website

Bewerbung per E-Mail

Bewerbungsunterlagen

• Anschreiben
• Lebenslauf
• Notenauszug
• Immatrikulationsbescheinigung

E-Mail Adresse für die Bewerbung
Senden Sie die oben genannten Bewerbungsunterlagen bitte per Mail an manuel.baumann@kit.edu


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