iFZ Research Centre for Biosystems, Land Use and Nutrition
- Picture of the Month
- August 2024
- Winter yellow rust under the fluorescence microscope
- Temporary closure of iFZ Research Centre for Biosystems, Land Use and Nutrition
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Dear members of JLU,
Due to urgent maintenance work, the iFZ Research Centre for Biosystems, Land Use and Nutrition on the Seltersberg campus will be completely closed for about three weeks starting in mid-September. This closure is necessary to ensure the building's long-term power supply, taking into account future requirements. The building's two main power distributors need to be replaced, which will require a shutdown of the power supply from 16 September 2024 to 4 October 2024. JLU's division Real Estate and Energy Management carefully considered alternative solutions, but possible alternatives ultimately proved impractical and were dismissed.
Starting from 9 September 2024, a week before work begins, the building will be closed and only accessible to authorised JLU staff. The building is expected to reopen to everyone by the start of the winter semester on 14 October 2024. We ask all students and staff to take this closure into account in their planning.
Planning at the iFZ has been underway for several months. Numerous experiments and test series will be affected. Staff will handle the situation in different ways: some have taken holidays, others will work from home more often or share space with colleagues in other JLU buildings. Some experimental work can be moved to JLU research stations. However, all laboratory work will have to be suspended for over a month. For those who cannot relocate their work, a special programme of workshops and training sessions has been developed.
The closure is related to the decision by Stadtwerke Gießen to stop supplying steam to JLU's research buildings. This so-called process steam is primarily used for air humidification in climate control systems and for sterilising biologically contaminated equipment and waste. Consequently, JLU will need to switch to its own electric steam generation. The existing facilities, which are around 25 years old, are not designed to handle the significantly increased electricity consumption this will entail. Against this background, the replacement of these systems is unavoidable.
We ask all those affected for their understanding regarding the disruptions. Further information about the closure will be available in the coming weeks on the iFZ's homepage at www.uni-giessen.de/ifz-betriebspause. Please address any queries to info@ifz.uni-giessen.de.
Kind regards
Susanne Kraus
Director of Finance and AdministrationProf. Dr. Karsten Krüger
Vice President for Academic Infrastructure- - -
More information
iFZ management
- The iFZ
- The iFZ is a Justus Liebig University Giessen research infrastructure. Securing bioloical resources using basic research into complex biological systems is the vision of the interdisciplinary Research Center for Biosystems, Land Use and Nutrition (iFZ) at the Justus Liebig University. The meeting of scientists from different disciplines encourages pioneering research at the frontiers of agricultural science, ecology, nutritional sciences and biotechnology at all relevant scales of our environment.