Towards Innovation and Large Scale Integration – Energy Islands and Energy Flexibility

The future low-carbon society calls for fundamental changes of the energy system. Wind power
deployment has expanded worldwide and is now among the lowest-cost means of electricity
supply and energy decarbonization in many regions. Initially the cost reductions have
materialized mostly onshore, but industry maturation and hence cost declines have accelerated
for the past few years, resulting in 50% lower costs by 2050 compared to the prediction only
five years ago.

According to leading experts a 300 GW offshore capacity on the US east coast in 2050 is
realistic. In Denmark the ambition of a 70% reduction of the CO2 emission in 2030 compared to
1990 has led to an increased focus on large scale offshore wind farms, energy islands,
power2X, flexibility, sector coupling, and data-driven smart energy systems.
Today the systems are operated and planned such that the production follows the demand.
However, an efficient implementation of a low-carbon society calls for a system where the
demand follows the weather-driven energy production. This highlights a need for a disruption
of the whole spectrum of methods ranging from energy systems operation to planning. Most
importantly we need methods for unlocking the flexibility at all levels of the society; examples
being buildings, supermarkets, wastewater treatment plants, industrial process facilities,
districts, municipalities and cities. The complexity calls for a next level of digitization leading to
new research related to physical and energy oriented AI, Big Data Analytics, Grey-Box
Modelling, Cloud-Fog-Edge Computing, Systems-of-Systems, IoT, Resilience, User-involvement,
and Data-sharing principles.

This series of US DK webinars is developed by Innovation Centre Denmark, Energy Cluster
Denmark and the Technical University of Denmark DTU. By inviting leading researchers and
stakeholders from US and Denmark we will provide a number of talks addressing the status
and challenges in achieving an efficient implementation of the future low carbon society.

Speakers

Torben Orla Nielsen
Science attaché and Consul at Innovation Centre Denmark Boston

Henrik Madsen
Professor at DTU Compute

Peter Markussen
Director for Associated Activities at Energinet

Lars Bonderup Bjørn
CEO at EWII

Pete Beckman
Director at Argonne National Laboratory

Søren Østergaard Jensen
Advisor in energy efficiency in buildings at the Danish Energy Agency

Mads Rønne Almassalkhi
Chief Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Ben Kroposki
Director for Power Systems Engineering Center at National Renewable Energy Laboratory — NREL