Members meeting summary

On the 12th of June, DBDH held their annual summer members’ meeting. This year at beautiful Hotel Hesselet in Nyborg. 44 members and speakers were gathered for a day of debate and networking.

The theme this time was “4G district energy” and its impact on the modern city’s infrastructure and consequent export opportunities. To speak on the subject were: Hans Henrik Lindboe from EA Enegianalyse, David Connolly from Aalborg University, Lars Larsson from Göteborg Energi and Jan Eric Thorsen from Danfoss.

Hans Henrik started off by talking about the latest analyses of the DH sectors situation in Denmark. What were the economically and political barriers and opportunities in the future? Besides the uncertainty caused by changing political priorities he still saw a bride future for DH.  Especially due to the DH ability to use power from sun and wind in an efficient way.

David Connolly gave the members an interesting introduction to the future of DH in Europe and the political situation on this matter at a EU level.  The different member countries perceive DH very differently, but in general the rising need for new green energy solutions has improved the interest. From his work with the 4DH project, David also presented the latest scientific results for the future of a smart DH energy systems fueled by many different energy sources.

Lars Larsson gave an introduction to the DH system of Gothenburg.  In many ways the Swedish DH systems have more experience in integrating heat pumps and district cooling than many Danish systems. Larsson also explained how different price-structures had made the necessary investments possible.

Finally Jan Eric gave a more technical introduction to some of the solutions developed and produced by Danfoss to meet the needs of 4G-district energy. The greatest challenge was to develop low temperatures solutions to increase energy efficiency in the grid.

The day ended with a delicious networking dinner served at hotel Hesselet. Later the members got a good chance to chat and catch up over a drink in the lounge.

See presentations and pictures form the event here