The 10th anniversary edition of the International Conference on Smart Energy Systems has just been held in Aalborg, Denmark, and has welcomed more than 300 attendees from three continents. Over its decade-long existence, the conference has become a significant venue for academia, industry, consultancy, and utilities to engage and discuss how to transition the energy system. Originally developed as a spin-off from the 4DH Research Centre targeting 4th Generation District Heating, the conference maintains a strong focus on district heating systems but also focuses on the integration with other sectors – electricity, cooling, industry, and transportation in line with the sector integration core of the smart energy system concept.
By Poul Alberg Østergaard, Professor, Aalborg University
Published in Hot Cool, edition no. 7/2024 | ISSN 0904 9681 |
Celebrating Excellence: Smart Energy Systems Awards
One popular Smart Energy Systems Conference tradition is the award ceremony, where two presenters are awarded for excellence in relevance, implementation, and presentation skills. This year, the awards sponsored by Kamstrup and Kingspan were given to Simran Chaggar, Fairheat, UK, and Costanza Saletti, University of Parma, Italy.
Transitioning to Low-Temperature District Heating
Simran Chaggar addressed the prospects of lowering supply temperatures to facilitate a transition to low-temperature district heating networks and showed that existing buildings often can be converted directly to DH and that some of the issues with the existing heating system are pre-conditioned.
Flexibility and Prosumers in District Heating
Costanza Saletti investigated the prospects of flexibility provision from district heating prosumers. Including prosumers in DH networks is possible, but it requires a lot of planning and an efficient system to optimise. Interestingly, she suggests that a good solution may be better than the best solution – find out more on the next pages.
The Smart Energy Systems Concept: A Holistic Approach
The Smart Energy System concept is essential for 100% renewable energy systems to harvest storage synergies and exploit low-value heat sources. The most effective and least-cost solutions are to be found when the electricity sector is combined with the heating and cooling sectors and/or the transport sector. Moreover, combining electricity and gas infrastructures may play an essential role in designing future renewable energy systems. Thus, the conference takes a holistic approach to the design of future energy systems.
Energy Security in Focus: Lessons from the Ukraine Conflict
This year, the conference focused on deploying renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies in light of the Russian war on Ukraine, which has underlined that energy security must be a pivotal part of energy policy. Reliance on Russia for natural gas, oil, coal, and biomass supplies has demonstrated severe flaws in European energy policies, and the unfolding events have renewed a focus on self-reliance—amongst others, on locally deployed renewable energy technologies.
Expert Insights: Balancing Energy Security and Transition
In the opening session, Dr. Vera van Zoest from the Swedish Defence University introduced her research on how exposed Europe is to risk in terms of Energy security, and Dr. Francesco Sassi from the energy security unit of the Italian Parliament and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation expanded further on the topic and the tension between transition and energy security.
Large-Scale Heat Pumps: A Key to Denmark’s Energy Transition
Furthermore, Professor Henrik Lund provided an update on optimal energy system transition paths based on the concept of smart energy systems. Senior Account Executive Raymond Decorvet, MAN Energy Solutions, detailed the role of large-scale heat pumps in the energy transition, where, for instance, Aalborg, Denmark, is in the process of installing a total of 177 MWh heat pump capacity to help substitute heat production from the coal-fired power station Nordjyllandsværket, to be decommissioned in 2028.
Global Perspectives: Hydrogen in India, China, and Germany
Professors Jyoti K. Parikh, Xiliang Zhang, and Michael Sterner presented the status and development prospects of hydrogen’s role in the energy transitions of India, China, and Germany, respectively.
Find links to the two articles below and learn more about the work of Simran Chaggar and Costanza Saletti.
“Smart Energy Systems Conference Awards” was published in Hot Cool, edition no. 7/2024. You can download the article here:
