The MATCH project will be ending late July 2018 and therefore a last partner meeting took place at the beginning of March. Previous meetings were held in Sønderborg, Trondheim, Vienna and Copenhagen, and this time we got to enjoy the Norwegian winter in Halden. Our host was Trine Wildt Andersen from Smart Innovation Norway and she organized two very prolific as well as exciting days. On the first day, practitioners and researchers from Denmark, Norway and Austria talked about the current status of the project in each country, discussed the plan for the upcoming months, and how the research output is progressing. So far, a fair bit of papers has already been presented and published and there are more to come. During the meeting, we conceptualised clusters consisting of different solutions of our case studies, which we will explain in the upcoming report from WP3 and elaborate on in future research papers. We came up with very interesting connections and are very much looking forward to working on them.
In the afternoon, we went on a little trip to Hvaler, which is the site of one of the case studies where the shaping of the “energy markets of the future” is taking place. It was an exciting opportunity to see the place after having read so much about it! The first stop was at a private household where we were introduced to the different technologies in practice. The owner showed us the operation of the heat pump, how much electricity is generated with the PV on the roof and the general energy consumption. He explained to us which interfaces are in practice to control the energy solutions and how they cooperate.
Afterwards, we continued our trip to Sandbakken, which is a project of the municipality of Hvaler and consists of a recycling plant for waste, 1200 sqm. of solar panels, four wind generators and four recharging sites for EVs. Jan Aspheim of the municipality explained the origin of the project Sandbakken, how it actually works and what vision the municipality has more generally in relation to create a system for monitoring and managing data within the municipality. Then, we went to the “heart” of the recycling plant and got to see the battery bank of Sandbakken.
Our second day was comparably short and we used the remaining time for more reflection on the upcoming work packages (including coming energy system scenarios), which will be covering the different clusters and a bit more sharing of conference opportunities. Nevertheless, this was definitely not the last time the partners have worked together!
MATCH partners at Smart Innovation Norway, Halden. Photo: Håkon Duus.
/Alicia Gutting, ITA.