Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heidi Heinrichs
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heidi Ursula Heinrichs is a professor at the new Chair of Energy System Analysis.
She received her doctorate from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), where she received several awards, and studied mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Her research and teaching focus is on material bottlenecks in the energy transition, renewable energy systems, and the endogenous integration of resources into energy system analysis, with a recent emphasis on the global scale and green hydrogen.
She has worked and continues to work in these fields in Jülich, Cambridge, and Karlsruhe, including in the context of various externally funded projects. She has also published numerous publications in specialist journals.
At Forschungszentrum Jülich, she heads the Resource Strategies department at the Institute for Jülich Systems Analysis (ICE-2). Her department builds on her ERC Starting Grant MATERIALIZE and focuses primarily on a material-side feasible energy transition, strategies for avoiding material bottlenecks, and generally robust supply chains.
Teaching
Her courses are aimed at students who
- have always wanted to know how energy scenarios are actually created
- want to understand what such scenarios can achieve – and what they cannot
- enjoy modelling complex system relationships themselves
The focus is on jointly immersing oneself in the world of energy scenarios and jointly creating initial energy scenarios.
Critical questioning of model assumptions and the ability to communicate results convincingly round off the courses – with the aim of enabling students to help shape strategies for the energy transition themselves.
Selected publications
- McKenna, R., Lilliestam, J., Heinrichs, H., Weinand, J., et al., 2025. System impacts of wind energy developments: Key research challenges and opportunities. Joule 9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2024.11.016
- Franzmann. D., Heinrichs, H., Stolten, D., 2025. Global geothermal electricity potentials: A technical, economic, and thermal renewability assessment. Renewable Energy, Volume 250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2025.123199
- Schulze, K., Heinrichs, H., Weinand, J.M., Stolten, D., 2024. From fossil fuels to metals and minerals: Navigating global resource challenges in the energy transition. Cell Reports Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100239