"Flexible Thermal Power Plants as Back-Bone for the Energy Transition" - Video of the joint event in Prague on 25 September 2018
Jiří Šmondrk, CEO of Doosan Škoda Power, opened the conference and highlighted the importance of the conference, particularly in bringing together all relevant players of the energy sector, academia and politics to commonly discuss on a topic of great importance for Europe. Ivan Dudurych of EirGrid gave an overview of the current energy system in Ireland from the operator perspective. Through its islanded geography and the high share of renewables, Ireland could be seen as a role model for the future European energy system. However, Mr Dudurych stressed the need for highly flexible backup power for stabilising the grid – a task which is currently being performed by thermal power plants in a reliable manner. Michael Ladwig, president of EU Turbines presented the current state of today’s turbomachinery industry as well as the main influencing factors deriving from various challenges and their impacts on the branch. He sketched potential pathways forward for turbomachinery in a Europe disconnected from fossil fuels. Several options exist for future gas and steam turbine applications, but huge efforts and investments are needed to realise the potentials of future turbomachinery. Alexander Wiederman of MAN Energy solutions presented the FLEXTURBINE and TURBO-REFLEX projects, their research objectives and initial results. "Within FLEXTURBINE, we were concentrating on enhanced power plant analytics & monitoring and component developments for more flexible and efficient operation of the plants. The highly promising results of FLEXTURBINE are complemented by its 'sister-project' TURBO-REFLEX which expands the results to enable retrofitting of existing fleet for flexible operation." Following the presentations, the speakers entered into a vivid panel discussion which was complemented by Mr Ján Štuller, Czech Government Special Envoy for Nuclear Energy. Topics which were rudimentarily addressed during the presentations were discussed in more detail, also involving highly interesting questions from the audience. Approximately 90 participants consisting of national and international representatives of the energy sector, academia, politics and media attended the meeting. The meeting was covered by Czech national media. FLEXTURBINE and TURBO-REFLEX have received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreements No 653941 and No 764545. Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikBY_mtc5Go&t=9s FLEXTURBINE project: http://www.flexturbine.eu/ https://twitter.com/FLEXTURBINE_EU TURBO-REFLEX project: https://www.turbo-reflex.eu/ https://twitter.com/TurboReflex
Keywords
turbine technologies, flexible turbine technologies, power plants, energy transition, advanced turbine technologies, supporting renewables
Countries
Switzerland, Czechia, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Sweden