New Chairman of PowerLabDK

The former Chairman of the PowerLabDK Steering Committee, Preben Jørgensen, has resigned from his position after six years. An unanimous steering committee has now elected the former vice-chairman, Jørgen S. Christensen, as new Chair.

”It has been a pleasure to have Preben at the helm through the development of PowerLabDK. He has left a clear mark on the progress and has been an inspiring and persistent sounding board throughout the process,” says Professor and Head of Center Jacob Østergaard.

New Chairman with solid experience
Jørgen S. Christensen is CTO of the Danish Energy Association, where he has been working with technology development and the relationship between production and consumption in the Danish energy sector for more than 20 years. Over the past few years, his focus on smart energy systems has increased. A focus also strongly emphasized by the COO of PowerLabDK, Frida Frost.

”PowerLabDK consists of several impressive, high-tech physical and digital facilities. Over the past few years, we have expanded with extensive digitalization of our components and infrastructure. A modernization that is much needed in order to help developing and testing the intelligent systems, which future energy systems will be based on,” explains Frida Frost.

The energy systems of the future are intelligent
The Energy Commission and the Digital Growth Panel both recommend an increased focus on digitalization of energy systems and development of new energy technologies in order to support the green transition and benefit both growth, employment, and export.

PowerLabDK supports these recommendations and has expanded its facilities with data collection, data management, real time simulations, and the use of high performance computing amongst other things, which strengthen the platform’s research, development, and testing of the future energy system. An energy system in which not only digitalization, but also net balance, renewable energy integration, and new market models are in focus.

”I am looking forward to close collaboration with Frida, where we will determine the future focus of the platform when it comes to smart energy, so that PowerLabDK can continue to offer unique testing facilities in Denmark and the rest of the world,” says Jørgen S. Christensen.

Frida Frost also looks forward to a good working relationship with Jørgen, and she has no doubt that his many years of experience at the Danish Energy Association will be of great benefit to PowerLabDK. However, she also acknowledges that the future focus of the platform is not entirely clear-cut as the Government’s new energy initiative has yet to be announced.

”I am very much looking forward to seeing the framework of the new energy initiative and how it affects both energy technology research and the green transition in general. In addition, it is also interesting to see if our proposal of Bornholm as a national test zone for smart energy is included in the initiative,” Frida Frost explains.