EUREC College of Members hosted by Institute of new Energy Systems at Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt

The Institute of new Energy Systems (InES) was pleased to host the 66^th EUREC College of Members meeting on 14^th and 15^th of June 2023.

EUREC - The Association of European Renewable Energy Research Centers is the voice of renewable energy research in Europe, representing European Research Centres active in renewable energy.

The main event on 14 June was the seminar “Renewable Energies and Grids: Grid-supporting Integration of Renewable Energy Technologies in Electricity and Heating/Cooling Grids?” with the following presentations: 

Chair: Rainer Janssen, EUREC President

Speakers:

• “Flexibility at the interface of TSOs, DSOs and markets” – Tara Esterl, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
• “Increased System Stability through Flexible Biomass CHP Plants with Steam Storage” – Thomas Riedmaier, InES
• “Grid Integration of Hybrid PV and Biogas Systems” – Tobias Baldauf, InES
• Fraunhofer’s interests in the area of grid-integration (electricity & heating/cooling) – Anett Hauser, Fraunhofer Group for Energy Technologies and Climate Protection
• “Interconnect project: interoperable solutions connecting smart homes, buildings and grids” – Thierry Coosemans, Free University of Brussels

The recording of the session is available here. A total of 40 participants followed the session on-site and online. 

Small-group discussions
Two networking sessions were also organised in the afternoon, one examining an open Horizon Europe call topic related to the subject of the workshop with a view to submitting a proposal. The other developed a survey for the renewable energy industry about the skills they are looking in new recruits in the context of EUREC’s involvement in the Renewable Energy Skills Partnership

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Lab visit
On 15 June, InES organised a visit in its laboratories for solar energy, focusing on the testing of solar thermal collectors, heat pump configurations and the upgrading of biogas to biomethane.

This was followed by a meeting to discuss administrative matters, immediate & medium-term plans and the progress and lessons from Horizon 2020 / Horizon Europe projects in which EUREC is a partner (European Technology & Innovation Platform secretariats, the Implementation Working Group on Energy-efficiency in buildings secretariat, SHIP2FAIR on Solar Heat for Industrial Processes in agri-food and W4RES ‘Women for market uptake of renewable heating and cooling’, the latter two of which end in the next six months).

Plenty of opportunity for informal networking was provided, including a city tour, two sit-down dinners and rooftop sunset drinks.