News

FER and FSB held Green Energy...

On Monday 26th of February, two leading Croatian technical faculties, FER and FSB, held a workshop on the green energy transition. Key note speakers were our Mirna Gržanić, Goran Krajacic from FSB and Leila Luttenberger Marić from KONČAR - Digital.

They presented the challenges related to achieving EU goals in the transition towards low carbon power system. In response to the challenges, our experts cited that multidisciplinarity, cooperation between science and industry as well as the education of students at all levels with an emphasis on the Study of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Sources in Šibenik,  are key to the development of Croatian energy sector. As part of the SOLAR FER program (''Photovoltaic system for the production of electricity for own needs in grid operation SE-FER-005 – Phase 11'' with a total value of 815,000 euros was financed by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (EEA ) in 2014-2021 with the national co-financing of the Republic of Croatia in the amount of EUR 693,000.00 in grants under the "Energy and Climate Change" Program), our faculty will install a 600 kW solar power plant and a battery storage with a capacity of 200 kWh on the roof of its buildings which will make it a very attractive living lab and attract leading experts in the field of energy, but also become one of the pioneers of climate neutrality.

You can find more about the workshop here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
SCINERGY '24 event held

Our Hrvoje Pandzic gave an inspiring talk on commercializing research in the energy sector at the SCINERGY '24 event. The goal of this event was to connect the research and the business community to commercialize research. Congratulations to Matija Srbic and the rest of the Innovation Centre Nikola Tesla (ICENT) team on organizing such important event! 👏

Author: Sara Jovanović
PhD thesis - defended ✔

On February 2nd 2024, Matija Kostelac defended his PhD thesis entitled " Modelling A Decarbonized Multi-Energy Industry Facility As A Flexibility Service Provider Under Price Uncertainty", which was conducted under the supervision of professor Tomislav Capuder. PhD thesis was written under the so-called Scandinavian system, where Matija published three extremely relevant journal publications.

Special thanks to the defense committee members, our department's professors Hrvoje Pandzic and Marko Delimar and professor Danijel Topić from the University of Osijek FERIT.

Dear Matija, best of luck! 🍀

Author: Sara Jovanović

SGLab FER-a u potrazi je za iskusnim istraživačem koji bi sudjelovao na istraživačkom projektu Miješana i proširena stvarnost u održavanju elektroenergetskih postrojenja. Projekt je financiran iz NPOO programa Podrška transferu tehnologije. Projekt u trajanju od 2 godine započinje 1.3.2024 godine, a vodi ga doc. dr. sc. Mateo Beus.

Potrebne kompetencije kandidata:

  • završen prirodoslovni ili tehnički fakultet
  • minimalno 5 godina radnog iskustva
  • dobro poznavanje industrijskih komunikacijskih protokola
  • osnove u radu s bazama podataka
  • iskustvo definiranja arhitekture aplikativnog rješenja
  • napredna razina programiranja u nekom od viših programskih jezika (C, C++, C#, Java, Swift) s naglaskom da prednost imaju kandidati s poznavanjem C#
  • iskustvo izrade backend dijela aplikacija
  • vrlo dobro znanje engleskog jezika u govoru i pismu

Zainteresirani kandidati mogu se prijaviti slanjem životopisa na email mateo.beus@fer.hr.

Rok za dostavu prijave je 29.2.2024. godine.

Author: Sara Jovanović

SGLab FER-a u potrazi je za administratorom koji bi sudjelovao na istraživačkom projektu Miješana i proširena stvarnost u održavanju elektroenergetskih postrojenja. Projekt je financiran iz NPOO programa Podrška transferu tehnologije. Projekt u trajanju od 2 godine započinje 1.3.2024 godine, a vodi ga doc. dr. sc. Mateo Beus.

Potrebne kompetencije kandidata:

  • posjedovanje visoke stručne spreme
  • minimalno 4 godine radnog iskustva s naglaskom da prednost imaju kandidati s iskustvom u administraciji projekata
  • vrlo dobro znanje engleskog jezika u govoru i pismu

Zainteresirani kandidati mogu se prijaviti slanjem životopisa na email mateo.beus@fer.hr.

Rok za dostavu prijave je 29.2.2024. godine.

Author: Sara Jovanović
February 11th - International Day of...

Today is the international day of women and girls in science!
 
With the above mentioned, we would like to tell you a few facts:
 
👩‍🎓 in the current year 2023/2024,102 students enrolled in our study of electrical engineering, of which 32 are girls
👩‍💼 in the last 10 years, the number of female employees in the Department has increased from four to 14
👩‍💻 at the Department today, the ratio of employed women-men is 14-35, which means that the share of women is 29%
👩‍🏫 in 2023, we got our first female assistant professor Mirna Gržanić
👩‍🚀 what it is like to be a female engineer in a field dominated by men, we commented on three panel discussions
🎤 two podcasts were held on the topic: ŽensCast#8 and ŽensCast#9
💁‍♀️ four (out of a total of nine) doctorates last year at ZVNE were defended by women
 
Ladies, you are amazing, don't stop pushing the boundaries. 💪
 
To sum it up, in a words of Mae Jemison, Engineer, Physicist and Former NASA Astronaut: "Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.”

#InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience #February11

Author: Sara Jovanović
China + Croatia = great combination!

It was an honor to host PhD students from Tsinghua University from January 24th to 31st. Thanks to Professor Tomislav Capuder and Professor Ning Zhang, we organized a PhD Day where students of our department and our guests presented their research directions and achievements on the following topics:

💡 China’s power system carbon neutrality transition with demand-side flexibility, Hongyi Wei
💡 Household appliance demand response considering the end-user comfort, Nikolina Čović
💡 Renewable power system planning considering temporal coupled seasonal imbalance, Boyu He
💡 Power Optimization Control for Cross-regional DC lines with LOLP Constraints, Shutong Pu
💡 Power System Optimal Planning Considering Seasonal Energy Storage, Haiyang Jiang
💡 Optimal sizing of solar PV and battery energy storage for renewable energy, Luka Budin
💡 Low inertia power system planning considering frequency quality, Xiao Cai
💡 How to bridge the gap between theory and practice - energy communities and local energy sharing in Europe and Croatia, Mirna Gržanić.
 
The established connections and discussions have provided a solid foundation for further collaboration between our department and Tsinghua University. Moreover, our guests had the opportunity to explore the center of Zagreb and visit the Plitvice Lakes National Park, Trakošćan Castle and the Museum of Krapina Neanderthal, while enjoying local delicacies. 

Thank you for your visit, we look forward to new cooperations and future gatherings!

Author: Sara Jovanović

Poziv na prijavu na natječaj za vodećeg istraživača koji bi sudjelovao na istraživačkom projektu Alat za preventivni redispeč elektroenergetskog sustava temeljen na optimalnim izmjeničnim tokovima snaga. Projekt je financiran iz NPOO programa Podrška transferu tehnologije. Voditelj projekta je prof. dr. sc. Hrvoje Pandžić.

Potrebne kompetencije kandidata:

  • završen prirodoslovni ili tehnički fakultet (VSS),
  • minimalno 5 godina radnog iskustva iz područja elektrotehnike ili doktorat znanosti i dvije godine radnog iskustva iz područja elektrotehnike nakon stjecanja doktorata,
  • odlično teoretsko poznavanje i iskustvo u radu s optimalnim tokovima snaga,
  • odlično teoretsko poznavanja i iskustvo u modeliranju elemenata prijenosnog elektroenergetskog sustava,
  • izvrsno poznavanje programskih jezika i načela potrebnih za učinkovitu nelinearnu optimizaciju,
  • vrlo dobro znanje engleskog jezika u govoru i pismu.

Zainteresirani kandidati mogu se prijaviti slanjem životopisa na email hrvoje.pandzic@fer.hr.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our first successful PhD defence in...

Our former colleague Štefica Vlahović defended her PhD thesis titled „Methodology for calculation of environmental conditions important for electrical equipment survivability after severe nuclear reactor accident“, which was conducted under the supervision of professor Davor Grgić.

Special thanks to the defence committee members, our Department professor Igor Kuzle, assistant professor Siniša Šadek and professor Daniel Rolph Schneider from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture.
 
Dear Štefica, best of luck! 🍀

Author: Sara Jovanović
Green Transition in Croatia and...

In the Christmas issue of the Nacional News Magazin, our professor Davor Škrlec gave an interview in which he explained the failure of the national waste management policy and the transformation of society towards a circular economy, the lagging of Croatia in the green transition due to the ineffective organization of the state, under-capacitated and incompetent public administration. He spoke openly about the challenges facing the European Union to move away from fossil fuels and become carbon neutral while maintaining global geopolitical influence and economic strength.

The full text of the interview can be read here.

#greentransition #circulareconomy #multilevelgovernance #energytransition #greenpolicy #europeanunion

Author: Sara Jovanović
Last December we had two highly...

Last December, with the increasing Christmas spirit and classical December joy and excitement, we at ZVNE had an extra reason for celebration – another two successful PhD defences at our department! 🎉

On December 21st 2023, Nina Stipetić defended her PhD thesis titled „Earth fault localization in isolated medium-voltage networks based on low-frequency signal injection“, which was conducted under the supervision of associate professor Božidar Filipović-Grčić.

The following day, on December 22nd, Matej Krpan defended his PhD thesis titled „Fast frequency control in low-inertia power systems“, supervised by professor Igor Kuzle.

Special thanks to the defences committee members, our department's professors Tomislav Capuder, Mateo Beus and Ninoslav Holjevac, and external examiners Bruno Jurisicšić from KONČAR - Electrical Engineering Institute, professor Jovica V. Milanovic from The University of Manchester and professor Dirk Van Hertem from KU Leuven.

Nina, Matej, we are very proud of you and wish you all the best in the future!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Visit to Revoz factory in Novo Mesto

We are delighted to have visited the Revoz factory in Novo Mesto on December 14, 2023. From its rather modest beginning 60 years ago as a small workshop for mechanical repairs of agricultural machines, Revoz gradually grew into a major car manufacturing company, globally renowned for its efficiency and top quality. Today, the factory produces Renault Clio and Renault Twingo, including its electric version. This is why we scheduled a visit to Revoz within the graduate class Electric and Hybrid Vehicles. Our master and PhD students, as well as the professors, were thrilled to walk through the entire factory and watch all the car construction phases. We are grateful to Petar Nevistic and the rest of the Revoz team for taking time to for us!

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Project UKUS - Final Dissemination Event

We invite you to the final dissemination event organized under the project "Universal communication and control system for industrial plants - UKUS", which will take place on Monday, December 18th, 2023, from 09:30 AM to 02:00 PM. The event is open to all interested parties and will be held at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in lecture room D244 (Department of Energy and Power Systems) and in the Smart Grid Laboratory (SGLab).

The research team from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, which has been collaborating with the development team from Brodotehna d.o.o. for the past three years on project activities, will present the achieved results. Among other things, they will present the findings published in scientific papers and the developed prototype of a software platform for optimizing the operation of industrial plants.

Author: Sara Jovanović
ICTRAM conference held

Researcher Nina Stipetić and associate professor Božidar Filipović-Grčić participated at ICTRAM conference (CIGRE SC A2 & 6th International Colloquium "Transformer Research and Asset Management") which was held from November 29th to December 2nd, 2023, in Split, Croatia.

They presented & coauthored 3 papers which will be soon published in scientific journals:

📑 Stipetic, Nina; Filipovic-Grcic, Bozidar; Ziger, Igor; Jancin, Silvio; Novko, Ivan; Brezak, Danijel; Xemard, Alain, “Experimental verification of low-frequency signal injection through inductive voltage transformers for earth-fault detection”
📑 Filipovic-Grcic, Bozidar; Frolov, Mikhail; Jurisic, Bruno; Manthe, Thomas; Matveev, Daniil; Rahimpour, Ebrahim, “Consideration of Non-Standard Overvoltages Compared with Standard Overvoltages in Power Transformers”
📑 Franc, Bojan; Filipović Grcic, Bozidar; Jurisic, Bruno; Zupan, Tomislav; Jakovic, Tihomir; Ivisic, Antonija; Sturlic, Ivan; Zupan, Alan, “Concept of Data Lake design for analyses of fast transients near power transformers”

Meeting of CIGRE WG A2.63 (Transformer impulse testing) was held during the conference (Bozidar is member of this WG). Soon we expect that the hard work of numerous experts within this CIGRE WG will result with publication of technical brochure.

Author: Sara Jovanović
ENERGY DAY IN CROATIA, 32nd FORUM held

Our Professor Zeljko Tomsic held presentation "New design of the electricity market in the EU for a decarbonized energy system and the Croatian electricity market" at the conference "How to Accelerate the Green Transition in the Republic of Croatia" of the Croatian Energy Society: ENERGY DAY IN CROATIA, 32nd FORUM at City Assembly of the City of Zagreb.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Panel Discussion - Women in Engineering

What can you do as a woman engineer? How does your day look like? Why did you decide to study electrical engineering and computing? Our amazing assistant professor Mirna Gržanić organized a panel discussion with 4 female engineers in different stages in their career to discuss the answers. Minea Skok (Filipec), Mia Suhanek, Lea Rački and petra jurin talked about their professional and personal development and how to manage work and family life. They discussed about organizations promoting the roles of women in this sector which help them to broaden their connections, such as IEEE Women in Engineering , IEEE PES Women in Power, XEnergy - Empowering Women in Energy Transition, Žene u inženjerstvu HRO CIGRE.

This panel is organized by IEEE PES Women in Power Croatia and project ''Universal communication and control system for industrial plants'' UKUS (KK.01.1.1.07.0034).

Author: Sara Jovanović
Project ANIMATION - Final...

We invite you to the final dissemination event organized within the framework of the "Active NeIghborhoods energy Markets pArTicipatION (ANIMATION - IP-2019-04-9164)" project. The event is scheduled for Tuesday, December 12th, 2023, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM and will be hosted at the DR LAB at the Department of Energy and Power Systems at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing.

This event is open to all interested parties, offering an opportunity to experience firsthand the incredible scientific and technical achievements made in the scope of this project.

Project “Active NeIghborhoods energy Markets pArTicipatION (ANIMATION - IP-2019-04-9164)” is financed by Croatian science foundation.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Last week we had two highly...

On November 27th 2023., Sara Raos defended her PhD thesis titled „Enhanced geothermal system energy projects evaluation model based on multi-criteria decision-making “, which was conducted under the supervision of associate professor Ivan Rajšl.
 
On November 29th, Hrvoje Bašić defended his PhD thesis entitled "Modeling of characteristics and methodology for testing lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicle applications", which was conducted under the supervision of professor Hrvoje Pandzic.
 
Both of these theses were written under the so-called Scandinavian system, where Sara Raos and Hrvoje Bašić published three extremely relevant journal publications each!
 
Special thanks to the defences committee members, our department's professor Zeljko Tomsic, professor Juraj Havelka, associate professor Siniša Šadek, assistant professor Robert Pasicko from UNDP, professor Hrgetic Mario from University of Zagreb/Sveuciliste u Zagrebu University of Zagreb, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture and professor Danijel Topić from Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek.
 
Sara, Hrvoje, we are very proud of you and wish you all the best in the future!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Visit to China

Our colleagues Nikolina Čović, Petra Drašković, and Matko Mesar visited the research group of Professor Yang Dechang at the College of Information and Electrical Engineering, China Agricultural University two weeks ago. During their visit, they discussed future research directions and they visited world-famous Chinese landmarks such as the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City. After Beijing, together with prof. Yang's students, they visited Chongqing where they participated in the iSPEC 2023 conference.
 
Upon their return, all three of them expressed great enthusiasm for the hospitality of their Chinese colleagues who had prepared for them 10 unforgettable days in China. As the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius would say: "It is a pleasure to have friends coming from abroad", we hope that soon we will be able to host them equally well when they visit our department in Croatia!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Christmas is here! 🎄

Our little elves are at it again! 🧝🏼🧝🏼‍♀️ Just look at how gorgeous, magical and beautiful the tree is 🎄 😍 Thank you kids, we couldn't have done it without you 🤍

Author: Sara Jovanović
Come and Join Us in the New Panel...

📢 On Wednesday 6th of December 4 women at different stages in their careers will talk about their professional and personal development. Join us at 12.00 at the Department of Energy and Power Systems to support our fabulous women in engineering: Minea Skok (Filipec), Mia Suhanek, Lea Rački and petra jurin. The panel discussion is organized by IEEE PES Women in Power Croatia and project UKUS (Univerzalni komunikacijsko-upravljački sustav za industrijska postrojenja'' KK.01.1.1.07.0034).

👀 Hope to see you there! 👀

Author: Sara Jovanović
We celebrated the 104th...

On November 24th, we celebrated the 104th Faculty's Day. Pretty much all the speakers, including Julije Domac, Tomislav Okroša and Ivo Milatić emphasized the importance of the energy sector, so we know we are on the right track!

As a part of the celebration, the Faculty (FER) gave awards to professors, associates and students who were particularly successful in their research and their studies in academic year 2022/2023. 🎖 🏆

Our former students Karlo Kobeščak and Filip Grebenar were awarded the Bronze Plaque Josip Lončar for outstanding results during their master's studies. Additionally, Filip won two more awards, the INETEC award for outstanding results during his study and the award given by the Mikec Foundation for the best master's thesis.

The newest member of our department, research assistant Lovro Lukač, won the Werner von Siemens award for the best student's research work.

Science Award for the results in research and innovation in the last two years was given to our postdoctoral researcher Tomislav Antić.
Karlo Šepetanc won the Franjo Luetić award for the results of their doctoral studies in the field of power engineering. He was also one of the recipients of the Silver Plaque Josip Lončar for the best doctoral thesis, along with Tomislav Baškarad.

Finally, our professor Davor Grgić won the Golden Plaque Josip Lončar, as an award for everything he did for our department, Faculty and University.

We congratulate and are very proud of all the awardees! We are glad that our hard work is being noticed, which gives us even more momentum and enthusiasm for research and teaching activities in the coming years. 🤗

Author: Sara Jovanović
IEEE PES ISGT Europe 2023 conference...

Our professor Igor Kuzle, assistant Nikolina Čović and senior assistant Tomislav Baškarad attended the IEEE PES ISGT Europe 2023 conference organized by IEEE Power & Energy Society and Université Grenoble Alpes in Grenoble, France from the 23rd until 26th October. This year's conference theme was "Powering solutions for decarbonized and resilient future smart grids" to which Nikolina and Tomislav contributed with papers on hydrogen integration to power systems ("The Impact of Providing Balancing Services with Electrolyzers on Power and Hydrogen Balancing Responsible Groups") and power system dynamics ("Multi-area Power System Frequency Nadir Prediction").
 
During the conference's gala dinner, professor Kuzle gave a speech in which he announced that next year's ISGT Europe conference will be held in Dubrovnik, Croatia. #isgtEurope2024

And that conferences can be fun, you can see from the attached picture! 😁

Author: Sara Jovanović
Medal "Fran Bošnjaković"...

On the occasion of the celebrations of the 355th academic year and the Day of the University of Zagreb at the solemn session of the Senate, our Professor Igor Kuzle received the plaque and medal 🏅 "Fran Bošnjaković", the highest university award for technical sciences for the achieved scientific results and promotion of the scientific discipline and profession, as well as for an exceptional contribution to the transfer of knowledge and education of young experts in the field of technical sciences.

Congratulations! 👏

Author: Sara Jovanović
ZVNE employees at HRO CIGRE 2023...

HRO CIGRE conference is the biggest conference in Croatia that gathers people from all segments of the energy sector. This year, it was held 5th-8th November in Šibenik, with more than 1000 attendees including Mr. Philippe ADAM, the general secretary of international CIGRE, and Laurie-Anne Clement Charpentier, president of French Women in Energy network, as special guests. Traditionally, our department contributed with many papers – 12 in total were prepared and presented during technical sessions by Božidar Filipović-Grčić, Tomislav Capuder, Bojan Franc, Viktor Milardić, Franjo Vuković, Nina Stipetić, Mirna Gržanić, Tomislav Antić, Nikolina Čović, Vedran Bobanac, Matija Kostelac, Matko Mesar and Marija Miletić.

Aside from technical sessions, presentations and booths, our employees got the chance to network and broaden their knowledge by exchanging their experience with others in the never-so vastly emerging and dynamically changing energy sector, and to connect with peers from the industry. A special session was devoted to young engineers, the NGN session, and it was organized and led by our colleagues - Božidar Filipović-Grčić and Nina Stipetić. We are happy that our young colleagues from TenneT TSO B.V., The Netherlands and SuperGrid Institute, France could attend this session as invited speakers. 

Author: Sara Jovanović

The students’ organisation KSET (SS FER) organised a two-day excursion to various electrical power facilities and organisations with support from our department and IEEE PES Croatia Section. The trip attracted students from all academic levels, from the first to the final year at FER. For the younger participants, this excursion served as an enlightening opportunity to explore the intricacies of power engineering, potentially aiding them in their academic and career decisions, while for the more senior students in attendance, the trip was a valuable exercise in bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Author: Marija Miletić
Invitation to the Project Workshop of...

We hereby invite you to the workshop of the project "Photovoltaic system for production of electricity for own needs in network operation SE-FER-005 - Phase 1 (SOLAR005)" of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing. The project is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway through the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (EEA) 2014–2021, with national co-financing from the Republic of Croatia under the "Energy and Climate Change" Program.

The workshop will be held on Tuesday, November 7, 2023, beginning at 10:00 AM. It will start at the Hotel Frankopan in Ogulin (address: I.G. Kovačića 1) in the Conference hall. In addition to the presentation of project activities and the promotion of solar energy as a renewable energy source, the event will include visits to power generating facilities and a lunch with a social gathering. Transportation between venues will be provided.

The workshop is free and open to all interested parties, and we kindly ask that you arrive at the workshop approximately 15 minutes before the scheduled start for registration.

Working together for a green Europe || More information: www.eeagrants.hr ||

Author: Sara Jovanović
2023 International Conference on...

Our assistant Sara Raos, participated in 2023 International Conference on Power and Renewable Energy Engineering (PREE 2023) held in Tokyo, Japan from 20 to 22 October 2023. PREE 2023 was co-sponsored by Tokai University, Japan, IEEE and IEEE Power & Energy Society, technical supported by Kumamoto University, JAPAN, American University of Sharjah, UAE, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. The conference aimed to promote quality research and real-world impact in an atmosphere of true international cooperation between scientists and engineers.

Sara presented the paper titled “Methodology for Oil-to-Water Conversion of Mature Oil Fields and Decision Support Tool”. Her presentation received the award for one of the best papers and oral presentations of the PREE 2023 conference. Bravo Sara! 🤗

Author: Sara Jovanović
PhD days  in China

Do you know that famous Chinese proverb: "When you teach someone, both teacher and student benefit."? Well our researchers, Bojana Barać, Terezija Matijašević, Tomislav Antić and Matija Kostelac certainly do.

Between October 12 and 18, at the Tsinghua University, they participated in the organized PhD days thanks to the Department of Electrical Engineering and prof. Ning Zhang.

Our researches presented their research directions and activities on the following topics:

⚡ On the challenges and modeling solutions for DER-rich unbalanced distribution networks, Tomislav Antić
⚡ Models of flexible and decarbonized multi-energy industry facilities , Matija Kostelac
⚡ Smart meter data: help or obstacle in the planning and operation of distribution networks?, Terezija Matijašević
⚡ On the control, operation, and resilience in low inertial power systems, Bojana Barać
 
This was an excellent opportunity to make new acquaintances, exchange experiences with other researchers, broaden horizons, and learn about new cultures. Their learning goes to the extent that they were introduced to one of the seven wonders of the world - the Great Wall of China!
 
We would like to extend our gratitude to prof. Zhang, his team, and the whole Department of Electrical Engineering for giving such warm hospitality to our researchers. We hope to meet in Zagreb in the near future! 😊

Author: Sara Jovanović
Annual Meeting on eMobility held

In the period October 9-11, 2023, the Croatian Academy of Engineering hosted the CAETS (International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences) Annual Meeting in Zagreb. CAETS is an independent international organization of 30 engineering and technological sciences academies. Each year, a conference considered as essential for the dissemination of technology within the international engineering community is organized. The topic of this year’s annual meeting in Zagreb was eMobility.

On the first day of the meeting, our Prof. Zeljko Tomsic hosted the “Session on Batteries – the core technology”. After a plenary talk by Dr. Kai _Wu, Prof. Tomšić moderated the #session with the #panelists Tony Harper FREng, Prof. Zoran Mandic, and Prof. Mario Vasak.

On the other hand, our Prof. Hrvoje Pandzic was a panelist in the “Session on Electrification of transport and integration with energy systems”. The session was hosted by Prof. Neven Duic, while the other panelists were Dr. Dr Katherine Woodthorpe AO FTSE FAICD, Prof. Joeri Van Mierlo and Prof. Ulrich Wagner.

We find the Annual Meeting to be a great success, with many interesting talks, debates and information on the ongoing research and industry activities in the field of eMobility. All the panels and talks were very systematic, well organized, insightful and inspirational. We are looking forward to the next year’s event in July in Helsinki!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Professor Kuzle was a guest of the...

Our professor Igor Kuzle participated in the Poslovni dnevnik podcast on the topic Without Sustainable Transport There is no Sustainable Economy. The podcast is part of a regular series dedicated to the Green Economy.

He also gave an interview to Poslovni dnevnik on the topic of smart grids, where he talked about the challenges of the modern power system, the problems and issues in integrating renewable energy sources and technologies that enable high share of RES in the power system. He presented innovative solutions from our research laboratory (SGLab - Smart Grid Laboratory) and briefly described the research and industrial projects of the SGLab.

 

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Conclusion of the Work on Project USBSE

The final three dissemination meetings of the project "Connected Stationary Battery Energy Storage - USBSE" were successfully conducted last week:

The completion of these meetings marked the conclusion of all project activities, with a presentation and demonstration of the achieved results in the last three and a half years.

Project KK.01.1.1.04.0034 “Connected Stationary Battery Energy Storage” has been funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund Operational Programme Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014-2020 of the Republic of Croatia.

We extend our appreciation to all who lent their support and made valuable contributions to the project.

For more information about the project, please visit the project website.

Author: Sara Jovanović
One More Successful PhD Defense in...

We are proud to announce that our researcher, Tomislav Antić, successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Extending optimal power flow model by adding harmonic distortion and voltage unbalance constraints for planning and operation of distribution networks" on October 6th. The thesis summarizes the contributions achieved in four published journal papers and six conference papers and presents recent developments and trends in distribution network modelling and analyses. The thesis was conducted under the supervision of professor Tomislav Capuder, with many other contributors, both from academia and industry, who helped achieve all the goals.

Special thanks to the defence committee members, our department's professors Davor Škrlec and Ivica Pavić and professor Andrew Keane from UCD, who all provided interesting comments and helpful suggestions for future work.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Annual field trip to... Mostar

Wonderful and sunny weather in late September was perfect for our annual field trip. This year we visited our dear friends at EPHZH in Mostar, who gave us a tour over hydro power plants Peć Mlini and Čapljina. We also had interesting and fruitful discussions with our hosts led by Dr. Drago Bago and Marija Buntić. Besides the hydro power plants, we visited wind farm ZD3 and a few solar power plants on the way. On top of technical visits, we got to enjoy the wonderful city of Mostar, the local cuisine, and the neighboring beauties such as the river Trebižat, adventure park Peć Mlini, and the Blue Lake in Imotski.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Panel discussion 'Should I stay...

We are so proud that a panel discussion 'Should I stay or go - women in energy' (as part of IEEE PES Women in Power Croatia and the UKUS project) was held at our Department. Mirna Gržanić, PhD was the moderator of the discussion. She had the honor to host and introduce four successful women: Paulina Duckic (our Department), Zora Luburić (TSCNET Services GmbH), Martina Kutija (FER) and Martina Mikulić (HEP). Ladies shared their business experiences, with an emphasis on the selection of academia and industry, the role of women in the energy field and gave us some good pieces of advice. Thank you very much, until the next discussion! 😊

Author: Sara Jovanović
Project USBSE - Final Dissemination...

We hereby invite you to the final dissemination event organized under the project “Connected Stationary Battery Energy Storage - USBSE”, which will take place on Wednesday, October 4th, 2023, from 10:30 AM to 1:00 PM. The event is open to all interested parties and will be held in the Gray Council Hall of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, as well as in the Smart Grid Laboratory.

The research team from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, which has been collaborating with the research team from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Information Technology Osijek, as well as the research team from the Faculty of Economics Zagreb for the past three and a half years on project activities, will present the achieved results. Among other things, they will present the findings published in scientific papers and the developed prototype of a battery storage system and its related software platforms.

Author: Sara Jovanović

Poziv na prijavu na natječaj za iskusnog istraživača koji bi sudjelovao na istraživačkom projektu Sustav za koordinirano pružanje fleksibilnosti elektroenergetskom sustavu korištenjem naprednih kućanstava. Projekt je financiran iz NPOO programa Podrška transferu tehnologije. Voditelj projekta je prof. dr. sc. Hrvoje Pandžić.

Potrebne kompetencije kandidata:

  • završen prirodoslovni ili tehnički fakultet (VSS),
  • minimalno 3 godine radnog iskustva iz područja računarstva ili doktorat znanosti,
  • odlično poznavanje razvoja sustava s naglaskom na arhitekturu,
  • odlično poznavanje rada s velikim količinama podataka,
  • dobro poznavanje backend (naglasak na web api i upravljanje s velikom količinom podataka) te front-end sustave i baze podataka,
  • dobro poznavanje sustava za verzioniranje,
  • osnovno poznavanje dev opsa s naglaskom na virtualizaciju,
  • vrlo dobro znanje engleskog jezika u govoru i pismu.

Zainteresirani kandidati mogu se prijaviti slanjem životopisa na email hrvoje.pandzic@fer.hr.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Participation at SEST 2023

We thank the Muğla Sıtkı Koçman Üniversitesi for hosting this year's SEST Conference. Besides networking, discussing potential collaborations and exploring the beautiful Muğla region, our researchers Bojana Barać, Terezija Matijašević and Tomislav Antić, presented the results of their work. The proof of excellence is an invitation to extend the presented papers and submit the new findings to a Q1 journal.
 
Another confirmation of high-quality work at our department is the Best Presenter Award, which our Bojana received in competition among other great presenters. After her amazing presentation, it was clear who the winner is. 🏆
 
Keep up the great work guys! 🙌

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our alumni community has a lot to be...

We're delighted to share that the 2023 IEEE Power & Energy Society Awards have been announced, and this year, we're celebrating the incredible achievements of three of our alumni: Damir Novosel, Marko Delimar, and Hrvoje Pandžić!

🌟 Damir Novosel has been awarded the prestigious IEEE PES Leadership in Power Award for promoting and mentoring electric power and energy engineers while creating bridges between the electric power industry and different stakeholders, including government, regulatory bodies, companies, universities, and industry groups.

⚡ Marko Delimar has been awarded the IEEE PES Robert Noberini Distinguished Contributions to Engineering Professionalism Award for contributions and leadership to IEEE and PES professional activities in support of Student Members and Public Policy.

🌐 Hrvoje Pandžić, along with his co-authors, has been recognized with the IEEE PES Prize Paper Award for their exceptional work on the article "Energy-Storage Modeling: State-of-the-Art and Future Research Directions," published in the esteemed IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.

Damir Novosel currently holds the position of President at Quanta Technology, and his academic journey includes a notable M.Sc. from FER in 1987. Both Marko Delimar and Hrvoje Pandžić are professors at the Department of Energy and Power Systems at FER.

Join us in extending warm congratulations to Damir, Marko, and Hrvoje for their extraordinary accomplishments. Their unwavering commitment to pushing boundaries and driving innovation serves as an inspiration to us all. 👏👏 #IEEEPESawards #InnovatorsInEnergy #Congratulations

For a deeper dive, check out the official announcement: IEEE-PES Award Recipients 2023

Author: Sara Jovanović
CGEE 2023 held

From 26-28 August 2023, Ankara, Turkey hosted the 4th International Conference of Clean and Green Energy Engineering (CGEE 2023). This hybrid event welcomed three outstanding keynote speakers (Prof. Joe Dong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Prof. Mohamed Benbouzid, University of Brest, France and Prof. Murat Fahrioglu, Middle East Technical University, Northern Cyprus). As the IEEE PES is a technical cosponsor of the conference, all accepted papers will be published in IEEEXplore and selected papers will be published in the Journal of Energy – Energija.  The conference proceedings contained four topics: 1) Smart Grid, Grid-Connected Microgrid and Power Load Forecasting 2) Renewable Energy Power Generation and Clean Energy Applications 3) Battery, Energy Storage, and Power Supply Technology 4) Energy Consumption and Emission Characteristics of Electric Vehicles. General chair of the conference was our professor Igor Kuzle who chaired the conference online, while our assistant professor Ninoslav Holjevac was a member of the Technical Program Committee.

The next, 5th edition of this conference will be held in Izmir, Turkey from 24-26 August, 2024, while the 6th edition will be held in Zagreb, Croatia from 23-25 August, 2025.

Author: Sara Jovanović
PowerTech Belgrade 2023 conference held

At the IEEE PowerTech Belgrade 2023 conference , several members of the Department actively participated. On the first day of the conference, which took place on Sunday, June 23, 2023, Professor Igor Kuzle, Tomislav Baškarad and Matej Krpan attended the Transit project tutorial under the title "Innovative Training and Education on Renewable Energy Systems: Towards the Future Resilient, Sustainable and Carbon-Neutral Power Systems" where Matej Krpan delivered the presentation „EMT modelling and simulation of grid-forming converter control“.

Professor Kuzle and Dr. Rachid Cherkaoui (EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne)) co-chaired the session Frequency Control I which took place on Tuesday, June 25, 2023.

On Wednesday, June 26, 2023, prof. Kuzle presented „A brief history of higher education in power engineering in Croatia“ within the panel discussion on Power Systems in South-East Europe. 

Tomislav Baškarad attended the special session titled "TRANSIT Project: Leading Innovations and Technological Solutions for a Sustainable Future" and our researcher Tomislav Antić presented his paper "The Importance of Technical Distribution Network Limits in Dynamic Operating Envelopes" in the "Renewable Energy" poster session.

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
New Project - SOLAR FER

📣 We are so proud to say that our team, led by Professor Tomislav Capuder participates in the new project of installing a new solar power plant of 600 kW coupled with battery storage.

📑 The project, is supported by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through EGP 2014.-2021. with national co-funding of Republic of Croatia through programme "Energy and Climate Change".

ℹ More about the project, SOLAR-FER, can be found here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
ZVNE & Awards

An assembly of the Croatian Academy of Engineering was held at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) on June 30, 2023.

We are honored to announce that Professor Hrvoje Pandzic became an associate member of the Croatian Academy of Engineering, while Assistant Professor Mirna Gržanić received the Vera Johanides Award for young scientist for a significant scientific and professional progress in the last five years. 🏆

Congratulations to both and keep up the good work! 👏

Author: Sara Jovanović
Final workshop of the IMPACT project

The final workshop of the project IMPACT was held on June 19th, 2023, at our Department of Energy and Power Systems.

The workshop presented the main activities and results of the project, as well as the activities of associates and partners related to the topic of peer-to-peer and local energy trading.

The end of the workshop was marked by a lively round table discussion with the presenters and panelists - on the perspective and challenges for the implementation of peer-to-peer and local energy trading in electrical distribution networks: Ivan Rajšl (FER), Goran Jurišić (Grid ONE), Goran Cacic (Zelena energetska zadruga (ZEZ)), Matej Cvitanović (HEP-ODS), Perica Ilak (Siemens Energy), Hrvoje Keko (KONČAR - Digital), Zlatko Zmijarevic (HERA), Lin Herenčić (FER).

Hereby IMPACT team thanks all partners and guests for their participation and contributions to the workshop.

The IMPACT project has been supported in part by Croatian Science Foundation under the project IMPACT – Implementation of Peer-to-Peer Advanced Concept for Electricity Trading (grant No. UIP-2017-05-4068).

More information can be found at the project website.

Author: Sara Jovanović
8th SESSION OF CIRED CROATIAN...

The 8th edition of the leading Croatian electricity distribution conference, HO CIRED, was held in Seget Donji from June 4th to June 6th. Since we recognize the importance of distribution networks in green energy transition, five members of our department participated in the conference. Besides networking and discussing the newest developments and challenges in the market, planning and operational aspects, we played a significant role in the event. We are extremely proud of our professors Tomislav Capuder and Davor Škrlec, who received awards for their contribution to the technical development of power distribution systems. Congratulations on the great job you have been doing!

During the opening day, Professor Hrvoje Pandzic moderated the discussion “Complementarity of distributed renewable sources and battery storage”, welcoming the experts from HEP ODS, HEP d.d., Rimac Energy and Končar Inem, who presented their views and experience in the topic.

Besides receiving the award, professor Capuder presented Smart Grid research projects at our department and participated in the round table discussions that followed with a number of colleagues from the Croatian research community.

Professor Škrlec was the chair of the session SO4/SO7 as the president of the committee SO4.

Finally, our researchers Tomislav Antić and Terezija Matijašević presented the findings of three papers aimed at developing tools that improve operation of smart grids with high share of renewables and other low carbon technologies.

Author: Sara Jovanović
What to do with Waste Batteries?

Our Vedran Bobanac has the answer - check out the whole interview at this link.  🔋

By the way, it is estimated that by 2030, 14 times more batteries will be used than now, and almost a fifth, 17% to be exact, in the European Union.

Author: Sara Jovanović
SUNNY DAYS 2023

ZVNE made a contribution to the highly successful international conference SUNNY DAYS 2023, held in Bol, Brač, organized by the Renewable Energy Sources of Croatia (OIERH) on May 25th and 26th, 2023. The conference brought together 400 participants and over 60 speakers. The value of this event was recognized by various institutions, and it was supported by the European Commission, the Government of the Republic of Croatia, SolarPower Europe, the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds, the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and State Property, the Ministry of Agriculture, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the European Investment Bank. Representatives of European institutions, ministries, Croatian and regional energy institutions, academic community, equipment manufacturers, banking sector, local communities, and civil society organizations discussed key topics for the stronger development of solar energy projects. A lecture titled "The Role of Energy Storage in the Energy Transition" was delivered by Ninoslav Holjevac, and the presentation served as a basis and introduction to the panel on "Hybrid Systems and Energy Storage.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Conference "New Capabilities and...

Last week in Noordwijk, the European Space Agency - ESA organized the conference "New Capabilities and Countries in European Space." 

It was an excellent opportunity to present our institution, a satellite-based experience, meet new people, start new collaborations, and enjoy Noordwijk's wind magic. 
 
At the conference, FER participated together with our partner company Adnet. Together we presented the ways of satellite development and satellite data exploitation.​
 
Adnet: Alen Muller, Frano Tomašević
FER: Josip Lončar, Jakov Tutavac, Josip Vuković (ZKIS)
FER: Amalija Božiček, Marta Đurović (our Department)
 
ESA projects: "Light pollution characterization module", "Advanced Power System Control supported by Copernicus Services"
#AACES RES Data

Author: Sara Jovanović
Visit to the Končar transformer...

Students of the first year of graduate studies of the course High Voltage Technology and Electromagnetic Compatibility visited the transformer factories Končar D&ST and Končar - Instrument Transformers Instrument on Wednesday, May 31, 2023.

We would like to thank Katarina Kavić (D&ST), Igor Žiger (KIT) and their colleagues who warmly welcomed us, held presentations, and took us through the production facilities. They gave honest and competent answers to every question.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Educational excursion for students

The Department of Energy and Power Systems organized a three-day educational excursion for the final year graduate students from May 21 to 23. The students participated in the MIPRO conference held in Opatija where they learned more about multiple European projects conducted by our Department, including ATTEST and FLEXIGRID. The students were given a glimpse into the professional life waiting for them after graduation. After the conference, they visited hydropower plant Senj where they had a chance to experience a real-life working environment and challenges in the everyday operation of a Croatian power plant.

We wish our students all the best in their professional careers and are proud of their enthusiasm and interest in power systems!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Come and join us!
Author: Sara Jovanović
New project!

We are deligthed to announce that FER, lead by the team from our department, is starting a new project! 💡📃

This time, it is not the typical one, but infrastrucured – we are starting a construction of a new 600 kW solar power plant 🌞 and a battery storage 🔋 unit to support it. With this new system our total capacities will be increased up to 700 kW of PV on the AC side and over 300 kWh of storage in batteries, covering a bit over 50% of total faculties electricity needs and reducing our carbon footprint by 109 tons annually. It also opens up other possibilities and brings additional benefits: not only will we be promoting large integration of renewables, but our students will have the opportunity to be part of FER's living lab, learn, research and develop new ideas based on data collected from the system. 🔍

We believe this is the first of many good news and projects to come in fulfilling our long term goal of carbon neutrality and energy efficiency. ⚡ ☘

Project is financed by Island, Lichestein and Norway through European economy space 2014. – 2021. with national cofunding of Republic of Croatia in the amount of 690.000 € from the program Energy and Climate Change.

FER is the sole partner in the project and the total value of the project is 815.000€.
 
More info at: www.eeagrants.hr

Author: Sara Jovanović
Professor Igor Kuzle received another...

Congratulations to our Professor Igor Kuzle for another international recognition! 🎊

Professor was first opponent in the defense of the PhD thesis of Erick Fernando Alves, who defended his thesis entitled "Optimization of Energy Storage for Frequency Control in Autonomous AC Power Systems" on May 15, 2023 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. Second opponent was Senior Lecturer Dr. Fei Teng from Imperial College London. The defense was led by Professor Karen Byskov Lindberg. Supervisors were Professor Elisabetta Tedeschi and Professor Magnus Korpas.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our Department won the organization...

Thanks to the great efforts of Professor Igor Kuzle, our Department won the organization of another flagship IEEE PES conference. 🙌

We are extremely honored to announce that the 14th IEEE Power and Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference Europe (IEEE ISGT -Europe) will be held in Dubrovnik, Croatia in October 2024. The conference addresses powergrid modernization and the applications for a wide use of information and communication technologies for more intelligent operation of electric power systems and integration of renewable and distributed energy resources.

A large number of our Department members will be involved in the organization:

Professor Igor Kuzle - General Chair
Assistant professor Ninoslav Holjevac - Co-chair
Professor Hrvoje Pandzic - Technical Program Chair
Tomislav Baškarad, PhD - Local Organizing Committee Chair
Matija Zidar, PhD- Finance Chair
Assistant Professor Mirna Gržanić - the Publicity Chair
Assistant professor Mateo Beus - Industry Vice-Chair
Assistant professor Goran Grdenić - Publications Chair
Paulina Duckic, PhD - Conference Secretary
Matej Krpan, m.eng. - Web Coordinator

We are looking forward to seeing you in Dubrovnik next year in October.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Final RESdata workshop

The RES Data #team is finalizing their three and half years of intensive research and development project these days. On Friday, May 19, they organized a workshop, opened for public, where they presented all the results of the project: from ML driven tools for forecasting operational aspects of the power system (wind, solar, losses, markets etc.) to data analytics tools for power system maintenance, analysis and restoration (e.g. lightning nowcasting, DTR). They also made some recommendations on future developments and issues they encountered while creating the solutions to mitigate climate change and enhance integration of renewable energy.
 
As a follow up of the workshop RES data team organized a roundtable meeting, closed for public, gathering different stakeholders from the industry interested in developed tools but also in further improvements and applications which could reduce the impact of climate change and make the energy system zero carbon. The fruitful discussion brought several suggestions and ideas for future collaborations.

Big thank you to everyone who participated and made this project what it is 👏 🧠

Tomislav Capuder Franko Pandžić Bojan Franc Amalija Božiček Ivan Sudić HOPS Croatian Transmission System Operator Plc. PROFESSIO ENERGIA PLC Comping Veski Ltd Croatian Energy Market Operator (HROTE) Green Energy Pal KONČAR - Digital E.ON Hrvatska HEP-ODS AI Technologies d.o.o. Adnet Porzana

Author: Sara Jovanović
Ivan from RASCO gave lecture about...

We are always honored when our alumni friends and collaborators from the industry come to FER and give an invited lecture in one of our classes. This year, once again, Ivan Franicevic from RASCO d.o.o. company gave his view on project management and risk management in the class with the same name. By skipping the “boring” theory this week, Ivan gave a practical insight into everyday challenges and issues they, as a innovation company, are facing daily, and offered his two cents on best ways to manage risk in different types of projects. Over 200 students had the opportunity to listen to his lecture and were almost unanimous in grading the lecture with the top mark. Thank you Ivan and we hope to host you again in the upcoming years!

Also big thank you to our Tomislav Capuder and Mirna Gržanić who made this possible.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Another Successful PhD Defense in our...

On May 4, 2023, Karlo Šepetanc successfully defended his thesis titled "Convex polar second-order Taylor approximation of AC optimal power flows". The exceptional feature of the thesis is that it envelopes 4 JCR journal papers (3 Q1 and 1 Q2) and one conference paper which means that he completed his doctorate under the Scandinaviamodel. Special thanks to his supervisor professor Hrvoje Pandzic Pandžić and associate professor Domagoj Vlah who directly contributed to his research.
 
Members of his PhD committee were professor Tomislav Capuder (UNIZG-FER), Minea Skok (Filipec) (Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar) and professor Juan Miguel Morales González (Universidad de Málaga).

Author: Sara Jovanović
RESdata & Energy and Power...

To raise awareness about the climate change, importance of energy transition and how the Department of Energy and Power Systems is tackling these challenges - we organized Info Day and a dedicated Workshop on 3 May 2023. The RES Data project research team presented the project we have been working on for the past 3 years at the Info Day and held a Workshop to demonstrate how we are utilizing different large data sources to create new tools and values for the energy system stakeholders. To make it a bit more interesting, we also organized a Kahoot quiz, challengin our attendees to see how much they (don’t) know about the energy and climate change. Although we usually hear that the best award is what you learn, we spiced things up a bit and gave away some prizes to the top ranked quiz.

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to this event!
Tomislav Capuder Franko Pandžić Marta Đurović Franjo Vuković Nina Stipetić Ivana Damjanović Petra Miljan Ivan Sudić Goran Grdenić

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our Marko Delimar is IEEE Haraden...

🏆One more award!

Congratulations to our Marko Delimar on his 2023 IEEE Haraden Pratt Award, sponsored by IEEE Foundation. For nearly 30 years, Marko has been committed IEEE volunteer as well as leader. During his journey, he co-created IEEEXtreme and served on the IEEE Board of Directors.

We are so proud of you, please do continue making great impact as an educator, scientist and great professor!

Author: Sara Jovanović
XEnergy - Empowering Women in Energy...

Last Friday, our reserachers Mirna Gržanić and Marija Miletić attended a roundtable on electricity markets organised by XEnergy - Empowering Women in Energy Transition 💪🏼

For more information about the event, click here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Switching to electricity ⚡

What Head of our Department, Hrvoje Pandzic, has to say about "switching to #electricity" ⚡ ?

👂 Listen to the radio show ZGRADOnačelnik on PoslovniFM and find out!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Conference and fair of didactic and...

Our Mirna Gržanić participated with her paper "Energy communities and collective self-consumption - local energy sharing from renewable sources" on a conference and fair of didactic and educational equipment, 2nd NEW ENERGIES DAYS.

More about the event can be found here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Regional Training Course on Energy...

Our assistant Sara Raos, participated in „Regional Training Course on Energy Supply Assessments for Energy & Climate Strategies“ organized by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Podgorica, Montenegro from 6 to 17 March 2023. The regional training was organized under the IAEA technical cooperation project RER2018, “Analyzing Low Carbon Pathways towards an Ambitious Decarbonized Energy Sector by 2050”. The purpose of this event was to train participants in the application of the IAEA tool MESSAGE for techno-economic energy supply assessments of ambitious decarbonisation pathways, including towards net zero emissions by 2050. The event gathered 20 experts from 14 different European and Asian countries. Each country team developed the regional model of each country’s power system in the MESSAGE model.

Author: Sara Jovanović
"Zeleni plan u energetskom...

📢 We're happy to share that Professor Tomislav Capuder from our Department recently participated in the "Zeleni plan u energetskom sektoru regije" regional summit! 🌍

👨‍🏫 He was invited as a panelist to discuss the modernization of the electroenergetica infrastructure in the region, which was one of the three panel discussions at the summit. The other two panels focused on "old energy sources in the modern environment" and the regional potentials for renewable energy projects development. 💡

The conference provided valuable insights into the past, present, and future energy situation in the region, and potential strategies to tackle the challenges.

We would like to extend our gratitude to Poslovni dnevnik for organizing this event.

Author: Sara Jovanović
20th INPRO Dialogue Forum held at Oak...

Professor Zeljko Tomsic, Ph.D. participated in International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 20th INPRO Dialogue Forum on Challenges and Issues in Capacity Building for Ensuring Nuclear Energy Sustainable Development held at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA from 27 - 31 March 2023. and held a presentation with the title “Education as the backbone of sustainable nuclear build – Croatian case study” prepared in collaboration with professor Krešimir Trontl, Ph.D.
 

Author: Sara Jovanović
6th GO-P2P Meeting held

Our researcher Lin Herenčić participated in the 6th GO-P2P Meeting, held on February 9-10, 2023 in Santa Monica, California, USA, hosted by the The Energy Coalition. The Global Observatory on Peer-to-Peer, Community Self-Consumption and Transactive Energy Models (GO-P2P) is a forum for international collaboration to understand the policy, regulatory, social and technological conditions necessary to support the wider deployment of peer-to-peer, community self-consumption and transactive energy models.

Lin was invited to present the findings summarized in the paper “Automated energy sharing in MV and LV distribution grids within an energy community: A case for Croatian city of Križevci with a hybrid renewable system” (Renewable Energy 191, 2022, p. 176-194), and he participated in a panel discussion related to the development of the regulatory framework and pilot sites in the European Union and Croatia for #energy communities and #local energy trading.

Author: Sara Jovanović
IEEE ISGT-ME 2023 held

Professor Igor Kuzle delivered a keynote speech on Operational Risks and Fast Frequency Control in Future Low-Inertia Power Systems at the 2023 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Middle East (ISGT-ME 2023) at the Khalifa University Main Campus, Abu Dhabi, UAE on March 12-15, 2023.

Other keynotes were distinguished professors Nikos Hatziargyriou (National Technical University of Athens, Greece), Claudio Canizares (University of Waterloo, Canada), and Bikash Pal (Imperial College London, UK).

This conference was attended by other members of our Department as well! Vedran Bobanac, PhD. presented his work „A Method for Quantifying Battery’s Fast Charging Ability and Application to Different Lithium-Ion Chemistries“, Mirna Gržanić, PhD. presented a poster „Is Dynamic Energy Sharing Really Necessary? The Case Study of Collective Renewable Self-consumers in Croatia“ and Ivan Grcic presented his poster „Artificial Neural Network for High-Impedance-Fault Detection in DC Microgrids“.

We would like to thank the organizers for a successful conference and an opportunity to disseminate our research results!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Happy Women's Day!

Happy Women’s day! 💪🏼👩🏽‍🤝‍👩🏼

Big thank you to our Department who makes it amazing every year ❤️

Author: Sara Jovanović

The department congratulates Professor Igor Kuzle on his new appointment as the Editor-in-Chief of the Springer Nature Technology and Publishing Solutions journal Electrical Engineering (ISSN 0948-7921) starting February 2023.

The journal Electrical Engineering following upon the long tradition of Archiv für Elektrotechnik and publishes original papers in the field of electrical engineering with a strong focus on all topics related to the electric power systems and the smart grids. According to JCR, the journal's current impact factor is 1.630 (Q3). This is a major new achievement for Professor Kuzle, who already serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Energy (ISSN 0013-7448).

Author: Sara Jovanović
Workshop done successfully ✅

On Monday, February 6th, the "Young Women in Energy" workshop took place at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). The workshop aimed to raise awareness of the EU principles, particularly regarding the gender equality and non-discrimination, in the field of energy. The workshop was moderated by Petra Miljan, a member of the USBSE project team, who provided a brief presentation on the current status of women in the field of energy and STEM. Five accomplished young energy experts, Petra Sagrestano Štambuk (HOPS Croatian Transmission System Operator Plc.), Martina Vajdić (CROATIAN POWER EXCHANGE Ltd. (CROPEX)), Andreja Lončarek Rajšl (HEP), Petra Mesarić, Ph.D. (Smartway), and Sonja Ravlić Begić (Ravel) shared their experiences and participated in the panel discussion titled "Young Women in Energy."

The "Young Women in Energy" workshop was held as part of the Connected Stationary Battery Energy Storage - USBSE project and was attended by over 50 participants.

More info on the workshop can be found here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
IEEE Award goes tooooo...

... our professor Marko Delimar! Congratulations!

Marko received the 2023 IEEE Haraden Pratt Award and he was selected “for inspired vision and steadfast leadership in improving global IEEE influence, member engagement, and governance.”

 

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Young Women in Energy

Dear all,

We cordially invite you to participate in the Young Women in Energy #workshop, organized as a part of the Connected Stationary Battery Energy Storage - USBSE project, scheduled to take place on Monday, February 6, 2023. This event aims to promote EU principles with a specific focus on gender equality and non-discrimination in the field of energetics. The workshop will feature five accomplished young energy experts, Petra Sagrestano Štambuk, Martina VajdićAndreja Lončarek RajšlPetra Mesarić, PhD and Sonja Ravlić Begić, who will engage in a panel discussion about empowering young women in energy careers. The workshop will take place at the FER - University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Gray Hall (D-033 on the ground floor), from 11:00 to 13:00 and will be open to everyone free of charge.

We are looking forward to seeing you there! 💪🏼

Author: Sara Jovanović
PhD Thesis - defended! 👊🏼

We are happy to announce that our dear colleague Tomislav Baškarad successfully defended his PhD thesis on January 27th, 2023. The thesis title is 'Assessment of photovoltaic power plants power reserve in power system frequency control', supervised by mentor Professor Igor Kuzle.

Congratulations and best of luck in further improvement! 👏🏼👏🏼

Author: Sara Jovanović
8th Conference on Energy Efficient...

On January 26, 2023, our Professor Hrvoje Pandzic gave a talk at the 8th Conference on Energy Efficient Lighting, Smart Homes, Buildings and Cities organized by Energetika Marketing. In his talk on active participation of households in electricity markets he presented some of the results of the project ANIMATION funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.

Author: Sara Jovanović
The fourteenth Conference on...

Our assistant Ivana Damjanović participated in The fourteenth Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies, North America (IEEE ISGT NA 2023), sponsored by the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES), held in Washington, D.C, from January 16 – 19, 2023. The theme of the conference is “Moving to a Self-Driving Grid.” She presented the paper titled “High Performance Computing Reinforcement Learning Framework for Power System Control”, coauthored by Ivica Pavić, Mario Brcic and Roko Jerčić.

Author: Sara Jovanović
IEEE 2022 23rd International Middle...

Our researcher Lin Herenčić participated in the IEEE 2022 23rd International Middle East Power Systems Conference (MEPCON'2022) held on December 13-15, 2022 in Cairo, Egypt. He presented the paper titled “Integration of DSO’s inputs in auction-based local energy markets”, coauthored with Tomislav Capuder and Ivan Rajšl.

The paper presents a framework for the active participation of distribution system operators (DSOs) in auction-based local energy markets, the work is supported in part by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project IMPACT – Implementation of Peer-to-Peer Advanced Concept for Electricity Trading.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Another sweepstake for World Soccer...

On December 19, 2022, another traditional event took place at Department that makes us recognizable within FER and beyond. Since 1982, the members and friends of our Department organized a sweepstake for European and World Soccer Championships, making such events even more interesting and fun. After the championship, at the traditional party, the envelopes with predictions are open and points are awarded upon a scheme designed by our doyens such as prof. Hrvoje Požar. The sweepstake did not take place only during the war years 1992 and 1994. After this 19th edition, our retired senior laboratory technician M.Sc. Radoslav Zelić still leads the eternal list, while the best predictor this year was prof. Ivan Rajšl. This year, 14 participants guessed the world champion (one of the questions), and as the employees of our Department have a big heart, the winnings were donated to a charity.

Author: Sara Jovanović
YoungWomen4OR

Our researcher Mirna Gržanić was selected in the initiative YoungWomen4OR among participants from 17 different countries. In order to support, empower and encourage the participation of all genders in Operational Research within EURO, The WISDOM Forum will promote 12 young women working in academia and industry publishing their work through EURO channels and invite them to EURO-k Conference in the YoungWomen4OR Stream to present their work and research proposals.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Kids on a Christmas mission 🎅🏼

Looks like we have a tradition! 🥳🥰

On Saturday, after enjoying the Saint Nicolas theatrical show at FER, our little magicians came decorate the Christmas tree. It's safe to say that, once again, we have the most beautiful one! 🎄

Thanks kids. You're amazing! 🤍

Author: Sara Jovanović
Final conference of the Interreg...

We participated in the Final conference and partner meeting of the Interreg Danube STRIDE project in Budapest on 21st and 22nd November. The conference was held as a part of the 5th International IEEE Conference and Workshop in Óbuda on Electrical and Power Engineering in Budapest, Hungary.


Our Department and FER were represented by Professor Nenad Debrecin, Professor Zeljko Tomsic, Sara Raos, Sinisa Tomic, Vlatka Paunović and Lin Herenčić, while the Croatian associated strategic partner, the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development, was represented by Vjekoslav Jukić.

The goal of the STRIDE project is to improve energy planning through the integration of smartgrid concepts in the Danube Region.

Participants were invited to learn more about how the STRIDE Methodology for Regional Analysis, Guidebook, and the STRIDE Smart Energy digital platform can be applied throughout the entire Danube region and beyond.

Author: Sara Jovanović
ICECCME 2022 held

Mirna Gržanić, our senior researcher, participated in The International Conference on Electrical, Computer, Communications and Mechatronics Engineering (ICECCME 2022) held in Male, Maldives from 15th to 18th of November 2022 with the paper entitled "Review of Different Optimization Techniques for Charging and Market Participation of Electric Vehicles" coauthored by Tomislav Capuder, Alen Hrga and Hrvoje Pandzic

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our assistants and researchers are...

Amongst the awards recipients at the Faculty Day celebration (FER), our assistants and researchers received awards for:

🏆 Silver Plaque: Mirna Gržanić and Mateo Beus

🏆 Annual award for research assistants: Karlo Šepetanc

We really do have excellent young scientists! Thank you guys for making us proud as well as making sure that we are not afraid for the future of our Department! 👏
 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Balance is the key

A little bit of conferences 📄, a little bit of thesis defenses 🎓 and a whole lot of fun 🥳🎉

Author: Sara Jovanović
FLEXIGRID project: General Assembly...

On 16th and 17th November, FER (FER - Department of Energy and Power Systems) and HEP ODS had a privilege to host our friends and partners from #Horizon2020 #FLEXIGRIDproject for a General Assembly and Review meeting in Zagreb. All hardware components developed and installed on pilot sites, all software tools developed, tested and verified and no delays in fulfilling the Milestones of submitting over 40 deliverables over the past year – YES, projects like this are possible!!!

We are very proud to be a part of such a project. We firmly believe that upscaling and exploiting the developed solutions will be a key in empowering DSOs around Europe and will help speed up the energy transition.
 
As part of the meeting our partners from Siemens and Bunel doo demonstrated in their laboratory parts of the solutions we are jointly developing and integrating in HEP ODS network.
 
One more year to go in the FLEXIGRID project and a few more obstacles to tackle.
 
CIRCE - Centro Tecnológico, Hypertech SA, Aleida Lostalé Caparroso, Tomislav Capuder, Tomislav Antić, Marija Miletić, Hrvoje Pandzic, Joško Grašo, Bernarda Ostojić, Vladimir Gagić, Josip Bungić, Zdravko Matišić, Ivan Periša, Elin Verd S.A. , Marily Efstratiadi, Ismini Alexandra Dimitriadou, Atos, Samuel Borroy Vicente

Author: Sara Jovanović
Become KPT scholar!

Wanna become KPT scholar? 🤓 📓

More info here and below.

Author: Sara Jovanović
SNIPPET Summer School: Secure P2P...

Our senior researcher Mirna Gržanić participated in SNIPPET Summer School: Secure P2P energy trading: From theory to practice. The school was held from 16th to 21st October 2022 in Chania, Crete. Interesting presentations related to energy communities, local energy markets, local bid generation, market clearance and settlements, data protection and privacy preserving were given by leading academic institutions (Tilburg University, Aarhus University, Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, KU Leuven) and industrial experts from ViTO, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Florence School of Regulation, etc.  

Author: Sara Jovanović
The 13th Mediterranean Conference held

This time our people overwhelmed the The 13th Mediterranean Conference on Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution and Energy Conversion (MEDPOWER 2022), held from 7th to 9th November in Malta. Marija Culjak (Končar - Electrical Engineering Institute), Petra Miljan, Sara Raos, Tomislav Baškarad and Vedran Bobanac presented their papers funded by the USBSE, FLEXIBASE, UKUS and MEET projects. It also marks the start and the first in-person work meeting of the Horizon2020 transitproject consortium, attended by Matej Krpan, Igor Kuzle and Tomislav Baškarad as delegates from FER leading one of the work packages. 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Radna mjesta na projektu »Regionalni...

Otvaramo dva radna mjesta na određeno vrijeme, do najdulje 31. ožujka 2024. godine, na projektu »Regionalni znanstveni centar – RaSTEM« na Fakultetu elektrotehnike i računarstva.

Pozivamo zainteresirane i motivirane kandidate (m/ž) da se prijave. Molbu, koja uključuje kratki životopis, pošaljite na e-mail goran.grdenic@fer.hr s naznakom naziva projekta i radnog mjesta. Prijave se zaprimaju do 18. studenoga 2022. u 14 h.

Istraživač (2 radna mjesta)

Lokacije rada:

  • 1 radno mjesto u Zagrebu, Unska 3, na Zavodu za visoki napon i energetiku Fakulteta elektrotehnike i računarstva
  • 1 radno mjesto u Šibeniku, Velimira Škorpika 6, na Studiju energetske učinkovitosti i obnovljivih izvora

Uvjeti:

  • VSS elektrotehnika, računarstvo, fizika, geofizika ili slično,
  • najmanje tri godine radnoga staža ili iskustva

Opis:

  1. Opis zadataka/posla – istraživač (Šibenik):

Osoba zaposlena puno radno vrijeme na uspostavljanju programa, osnivanju i definiranju djelokruga djelatnosti Regionalnog znanstvenog centra kao i svim aktivnostima vezanim za uspostavljanje i opremanje Regionalnog centra, organizacije specijaliziranih sajmova, uspostavi prostornih kapaciteta i sl. Aktivnosti za koje će istraživač u Šibeniku biti zadužen su: definiranje i rad na uspostavi, opremanju i organizaciji Regionalnog znanstvenog centra RaSTEM, rad na izradi ključnih dokumenata.

  1. Opis zadataka/posla – istraživač (Zagreb):

Osoba zaposlena puno radno vrijeme na uspostavljanju programa Regionalnog znanstvenog centra, izradi programa za uvođenje novih STEM programa u osnovne škole, izradi okvira za suradnju i uspostavu suradnje s osnovnim i srednjim školama, transfer znanja prema učiteljima, organizaciji kampanja za promociju Regionalnog znanstvenog centra RaSTEM, pripremi, razvoju i provedbi mehanizama osiguranja kvalitete razvoja i rada Centra.

Više o samom projektu možete naći ispod ("more").

Author: Sara Jovanović
The 11th International Conference on...

Our research assistants Anica Šešok, Ivana Damjanović and Matej Krpan participated at IEEE ISGT -Asia 2022, the 11th International Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (Asia) held from 1st to 5th November at the fantastic Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Anica presented a paper “Transient Stability Improvement of Croatian Power System Using FACTS” coauthored with Ivica Pavić, while Matej presented a paper “Three-Phase SFR PLL model for System Frequency Response Studies in Low-Inertia Systems” coauthored with Igor Erceg, Igor Kuzle & Hrvoje Pandzic, and supported by the USBSE project. It was a 5 wonderful days of interesting lectures, networking and enjoying the wonderful views of downtown Singapore.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Interlaboratory testing in the High...

According to the requirements of HRN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2017 General requirements for the qualification of testing and calibration laboratories, point 7.7.2 b), on October 25, 2022, an interlaboratory test of the electricfield strength and magnetic flux density of frequency 50 Hz was carried out in the High Voltage Laboratory of FER - Department of Energy and Power Systems.

In addition to the accredited FER laboratory, the following accredited laboratories participated in the interlaboratory testing:

📚 Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory;
📚 KONČAR - Electrical Engineering Institute Laboratory center;
📚 Institute for Security Research and Development d.o.o. ZIRS laboratory.

The measurement of the electric field was carried out at 15 different values of the electric field in the range from 0 to 10 kV/m.
Magnetic induction was measured at 12 different values of magnetic induction ranging from 10 to 160 µT.

Author: Sara Jovanović
CIGRE Croatian National Committee held

An online lecture entitled “Simulations and measurements of electromagnetic transients on power transformers” organized by CIGRE Croatian National Committee was held on 13th October 2022. Lecture was held by Assistant Professor Božidar Filipović-Grčić from High voltage laboratory at FER (our Department) and Dr. Bruno Jurišić from Končar - Electrical Engineering institute (Transformers Department). Many participants from the power utilities, industry, and transformer factories attended this lecture. 

The summary of the lecture can be found below.

Author: Sara Jovanović
DINGO does not only exist in Australia 😆

We love a good challenge and when our colleagues from HELB and Sedam IT asked us to join them in the #DINGO project we did not hesitate for a second. Over the last two years we have been developing a set of solutions with the goal to empower our distribution system operator (HEP ODS) to become an enabler of the energy transition. The black box of the low voltage grid will soon, hopefully with the help of our solution, become more efficient and in turn able to integrate higher shares of low carbon technologies such as PVs or electric vehicles. The algorithmic part of the solution is developed by FER (FER - Department of Energy and Power Systems) but our colleagues from HELB and Sedam IT are to be credited for turning it into a market ready product. We would not be able to do any of this if our colleagues from HEP ODS were not there to provide us inputs, data sets and pilot sites where our solution is currently being tested and verified.
 
Last week, our friends and colleagues from Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek (Danijel Topić, Goran Knežević, Šljivac Damir, Kresimir Fekete, Srete Nikolovski, PhD. MSc. Dipl.ing. SMIEEE, zvonimir klaic, Tomislav Matic, Emmanuel Karlo Nyarko, Marinko Barukčić, Mario Vranješ, Josip Balen) have invited us to present above mentioned results in a Special Session at the SST 2022 conference in Osijek. Our team, which presented these results, was: Terezija Matijašević, Tomislav Antić and Tomislav Capuder. Thanks again for hosting us at one of the most enjoyable conferences there is! We are already looking forward to the next SST 2024 event. 🎉
 
We would also like to thank HAMAG-BICRO - Croatian agency for SMEs, Innovations and Investments for funding us and assisting us with so many things through this entire process.

Tomislav Capuder Tomislav Antić Terezija Matijašević Ivan Sudić Kristina M. Sven B. Goran Jurišić Tomislav Geceg Stipe Rebić Vedran Đidara, PMP Ivan Periša Igor Žarkić Ivica Hadjina Jurica Majcen

Author: Sara Jovanović
Končar Distribution and Special...

Assistant Professor Božidar Filipović-Grčić from High voltage laboratory at FER (ZVNE- our Department) signed a donation contract with company Končar Distribution and Special Transformers Inc.

Donation includes single phase testing transformer 400 V / 110 kV with rated power 25 kVA. This transformer will be used for research purposes (research projects) and educational activities in High voltage laboratory (at following courses: Testing and Measurement Methods in High Voltage Engineering, Transformer testing, Overvoltage Protection, High Voltage Technology and EMC, Electrical Transients in Power Systems and Electric Power Systems 1).

We would like to take this opportunity to express our great gratitude to the above mentioned company for this very valuable donation, especially to the management board, Martina Mikulić, and technical director Sanela Carević. Thanks for supporting our teaching and research activates. We are looking forward to our successful future cooperation.

You can find photos of donated transformer below.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Amazing achievement!

Even Stanford University list recognizes excellent work of our researchers: professor Hrvoje Pandzic, head of our Department, is among 2% most quoted and influential world's scientists. Bravo! 👏🏼💡

More information here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Recognition of the Society for OIEE

We are proud to inform you that our asoc. prof. Ivan Rajšl has received an Award as a recognition of exceptional contribution in the field of renewable electricity power sources!

Congratulations! 👏🏼👏🏼

SMEITS

Privredna komora Srbije

OIE

Author: Sara Jovanović
We do more than "just...

Around two years ago, with our colleagues from Intis engineering, we embarked one of the most challenging journeys one can take in Croatia – developing of hardware and software product from scratch. The design, dimensioning, optimization, control, hardware, assembly, testing etc. – all this was done in Croatia by our friends from Intis and engineering and us. This week we were finally able to live test what we have been developing. Its always stressful when you “play” with high voltage/currents, but as you can see from the photos the tests were a huge success! And we won’t stop here, so stay tuned from more great news like this. 😄

We thank Hamag Bicro for funding us and assisting us with so many things through this entire process.

Also, big thanks to people who were working on this project: Frane Zdunić, Drago Romić, Tomislav Capuder, Hrvoje Pandžić, Mateo Beus, Mirna Gržanić, Alen Hrga, Bojan Franc

Author: Sara Jovanović
Another Successful PhD Defense in our...

We are proud to announce that our dear colleague Lin Herenčić successfully defended his PhD thesis on October 5th, 2022. The thesis title is 'Modelling local electricity market in distribution networks', supervised by mentor Asoc.prof.dr.sc. Ivan Rajšl. The thesis was conducted in scope of national research project "Implementation of Peer-to-Peer Advanced Concept for Electricity Trading" (IMPACT), financed mainly by the Croatian Science Foundation. Thanks to Lin, our department is up to date with significant topics in the field of local electricity markets.

Congratulations Lin! 👏🏼👏🏼

Author: Sara Jovanović
Professional development - Vis

Last weekend of September was quite exciting for our Department. We first visited hydropower plants Gojak and Lešće, where the local experts welcomed us and gave us a tour of both power plants. While hydro power plant Gojak has been in operation since 1959, hydro power plant Lešće is the only medium-scale power plant (installed capacity 41,2 MW) constructed in Croatia in the last 30 years. Then we traveled to the island of Vis to take a tour of the first large-scale battery facility (1,45 MWh) coupled with a 3,5 MW solar power plant. This hybrid facility will provide security of supply to this remote Croatian island, especially important during the tourist season. In the rest of the year the battery storage will be used for arbitrage and provision of frequency ancillary services. All the visited facilities are owned and operated by HEP, while the battery storage is currently being commissioned by Končar INEM. We would like to thank to all our hosts for this insightful and highly informative technical visit.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Project gENESIS – Final workshop

On Monday, October 3rd, 2022, associate professor Tomislav Capuder participated in the final technical workshop of the project gENESIS organized by Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST). Professor Capuder shared his experience with the challenges of smart distribution networks' modelling. He also gave an insight into the differences between the potential problems that occur in research and reality. The presented work is a result of projects IMAGINE, ATTEST and FLEXIGRID.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Technical workshop – IMAGINE project

On Friday, September 30th, 2022, the final technical workshop of the IMAGINE project was held. Project manager and associate professor Tomislav Capuder opened the workshop and presented a summary of the most important results and achievements. Following his presentation, our PhD students Tomislav Antić, Bojana Barać, Matija Kostelac and Terezija Matijašević, postdoctoral student Mirna Gržanić and assistant professor Mateo Beus presented their work to partners from HEP ODS. After the presentations of the research results achieved as part of the IMAGINE project, a visit was made to the Smart Grid laboratory, which equipment was partially funded by the project. All publications and news about the project can be found at the IMAGINE website.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Meeting of the Working Group on...

Marko Delimar and Davor Škrlec attended the meeting of the Working Group on Energy of the IEEE European Public Policy Committee in Brussels, Belgium. Topic discussed included smart & sustainable transport (and ports), the upcoming roles of hydrogen in the energy sector, smart buildings and many others. The meeting was attended by several EC policy officers and team leaders from DG Move and DG Energy as well as Željko Krevzelj, Energy Attache from the Permanent Representation of Croatia to the EU.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Professional Development - Dublin

Our teaching and research assistant, Tomislav Antić spent six months between March 1st and September 1st, 2022 at University College Dublin where he was working as a visiting researcher under the supervision of professor Andrew Keane. During his stay at UCD Tomislav was working on the development of optimization models used in the planning and operation of distribution networks. Tomislav is very satisfied with his time at UCD since he learned a lot, made progress in his PhD research, but also exchanged experiences with other researchers and made a lot of connections that will be helpful in future work.

Author: Sara Jovanović
International Conference on European...

Last week our researcher Ivan Sudić participated on International Conference on European Energy Markets 2022 held at  University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering. He presented an interesting topic with the title: "Estimating the value of power losses forecast in the transmission system by comparing different electricity procurement strategies". Ivan also participated in some compelling discussions. The most intense discussions were on how to best mitigate the effects of the current energy crisis. On one thing there is general consensus: Government interventions should be done only after markets, never interfering in the markets themselves.

Author: Sara Jovanović
IEEE Powercon 2022 international...

Our assistant Matej Krpan participated in the IEEE Powercon 2022 international conference in Kuala Lumpur with the paper: Laboratory Testbed for Advanced Grid Applications of Interconnected Battery Energy Storage Systems in Smart Grids as part of the USBSE project.

Author: Sara Jovanović
FLEXGRID H2020 project final event

A novel #smartgrid architecture that facilitates high-RES penetration through innovative markets towards efficient interaction between advanced #electricity grid management and intelligent stakeholders.
 
As partners of the #EUHORIZON2020 FLEXGRID #project, we cordially invite you to our final event: FLEXGRID Final HYBRID-Demo Day Event
 
The #HYBRID-Demo Day #Event includes:

-A keynote speech by Nord Pool Consulting AS (Europe’s leading electricity market operator)
-Energy flexibility and vision of NODESmarket marketplace (Norway’s leading flexibility market operator)
-A live demo & pitch of the novel Flexibility trading platform and corresponding services:
   > Automatic Trading Platform (ATP) for Flexibility Market actors (ETRA)
   > FLEXGRID Automated Flexibility Aggregation Toolkit (AFAT) (Demo + Q&A) (ICCS - NTUA )
   > FlexSupplier Toolkit (FST) for Energy Service Providers (ESPs) and Aggregator companies (University of Zagreb/Sveuciliste u Zagrebu / FER)
   > Flexibility Market Clearing Toolkit (FMCT) for grid operators (DTU - Technical University of Denmark)
-Discussions around #energy flexibility algorithms, market #architectures, and #technologicaltools
-Licensing opportunities and #businessdeals for acquiring such services
-#Networking and #collaboration with leading European Energy actors
 
Time and Place:
Monday, September 26 @ 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM
 
𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄 👇
https://lnkd.in/dzNF4hFz

Author: Sara Jovanović
EMTP FALL USER CONFERENCE held

EMTP FALL USER CONFERENCE was held in Paris, 30-31st August, 2022, during the „CIGRE Paris Session 2022“.

It was a great oportunity to exchange experiences and views for further development of EMTP software and to initiate new collaborations. At this conference, a presentation with title „Analysis of transient recovery voltage on circuit-breaker connected to HV terminals of step-up transformer located in hydro power plant“ was held, whose authors are from FER - Department of Energy and Power Systems: Božidar Filipović-Grčić, Nina Stipetić and Franjo Vuković.

Author: Sara Jovanović
CIGRE Session 2022

The international conference „CIGRE Session 2022“ was held in Pariz from the 28th of August to the 2nd of September, the largest symposium organized every two years by CIGRE. Because of the pandemic, the conference was not held in 2020, so a record number of power system experts from all around the world participated this year. Employees of the Department of power systems and energy, assistants Ivana Damjanović, Nina Stipetić, and Goran Grdenić participated in the conference.

Among numerous lectures, workshops, and group discussion meetings, Ivana and Nina also participated in the forums of „NGN – Next Generation Network“ and „Women in Energy.“ A technical visit to the 220 kV transformer station with an embedded SVC device was also organized during the conference. Within the NGN technical session, the project DESME – „Development of an expert system for measuring lightning strike parameters and protection of wind turbine blades to reduce failures and downtime“ was presented, currently ongoing with FER and company Porzana d.o.o. cooperation. The paper "Statistical Analysis and Grouping of Measured Power Transformer Overvoltages" (authors: Bruno Jurisic, Tomislav Zupan,  Božidar Filipović-Grčić and Goran Levačić) was presented within Study Committee A2  Session– Power Transformers and reactors.

ZVNE members participated in CIGRE Working Group (WG) meetings:

  1. WG C4.66 - New concept for analysis of multiphase back-flashover phenomena of overhead transmission lines due to lightning (Nina Stipetić, prof. Božidar Filipović-Grčić, prof. Viktor Milardić)
  2. WG A2.63 - Transformer impulse testing (prof. Božidar Filipović-Grčić)
Author: Sara Jovanović
Conference ENERGY and RES 2022 held

Conference ENERGY and RES 2022, which was held on Monday, September 5 in Krško (Cultural House), brought together numerous experts from the energy sector, decision makers, investors, utility companies and representatives of the academic community with the aim of discussing the possibilities for cushioning the energy shock and ensuring energy self-sufficiency.

Among keynote speakers was our Professor Zeljko Tomsic, Ph.D. with his presentation: Energy transition and nuclear energy.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Energy savings in Europe and Croatia

The RTL show on August 31, 2022, RTL DIREKT also featured our Prof. Željko Tomšić, Ph.D., who reported on the energy saving measures of the  Government of the Republic of Croatia.

The theme of the talk was energy savings in Europe and Croatia. Prof. Tomšić explained why the government's measures come too late.

In the program, the RTL reporter measured the temperatures in hospitals, shopping malls, trains, airports and at FER to see if the government's recommendations are being followed.

Prof.  Tomšić emphasized the difference between energy savings and energy efficiency because energy savings lead cost savings, but at an expense of health and user comfort, so the impact of individual saving proposals should be carefully weighed. He emphasized that energy efficiency means achieving the same level of comfort, service, or production at lower energy costs, while conservation, for example, reduces comfort (wearing thicker clothing due to lower temperatures, etc.).

The relevant broadcast is available here.

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Professors of ZVNE were appointed as...

Professors of ZVNE were appointed as Croatian representatives to the Program Committee for the Framework Program for Research and Innovation - Horizon Europe and the Research and Training Program of the European Atomic Energy Community for the period 2021-2025!

Minister of Science and Education, on July 28, 2022, prof. Radovan Fuchs, Ph.D. made a decision on the appointment of representatives to the Program Committee for the Framework Program for Research and Innovation - Horizon Europe and the Research and Training Program of the European Atomic Energy Community for the period 2021-2025.

The members of the Program Committee are officially appointed by the Ministry of Science and Education, who are responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Horizon Europe Program and are intermediaries between the European Commission and the stakeholders of the national funding system.

The members of the Program Committee are experts and representatives with many years of experience in the respective field.

For the area of Climate, Energy and Mobility (including related missions and partnerships) was appointed:

  • Prof. Željko Tomšić, Ph.D., University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Expert.

Among the representatives of the Republic of Croatia in the compositions of the Program Committees of the Research and Training Program of the European Atomic Energy Community for the period 2021-2025, complementing Horizon Europe, the following was appointed for the field of nuclear fission:

  • Prof. Davor Grgić, Ph.D., University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Expert.

The tasks of the members of the Program Committee are listed in the Decision itself, the most important of which are as follows.

  • Regular participation in the meetings of the relevant composition of the Program Committee and preparation of reports on their results
  • Participation in the preparation and representation of the position of the Republic of Croatia within its own expertise on specific issues in the relevant composition of the Program Committee,
  • Participation in the preparation of strategic and operational documents of the Ministry related to the improvement of the participation of the Republic of Croatia in the Horizon Europe Program,
  • Preparation of national proposals, amendments and additions to the relevant work program,
  • Promotion of the interests of the Croatian research and innovation community in the relevant area at the national and European level.
Author: Sara Jovanović
International conference on Time...

Our researcher Franko Pandžić, along with co-authors Amalija Božiček and Matko Mesar, participated at the International conference on Time Series and Forecasting which was held at the beautiful island of Gran Canaria, Spain from 27-30th July.

Franko presented the paper titled "Power grid load forecasting using ridge regression including weather forecasts, reanalyses, terrestrial and satellite weather data" in which a great improvement in grid load forecasting with effective use of temperature data was demonstrated.

They used their free time for team building and exploring the island with colleagues from our partner institution, HOPS.

Author: Sara Jovanović
2022 IEEE PES GM held

After two years of online meetings, this year the IEEE PES General Meeting was held in person in Denver, CO. Our Department was very busy at the meeting. Our PhD student Karlo Šepetanc delivered two talks. Besides presenting his IEEE Transactions on Power System paper Convex Second-order Taylor Approximation of AC Power Flows: A Unit Commitment Study, he delivered a talk on Solving Bilevel Power System Problems Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks at the panel Using Data Analytics to Improve Energy Storage Modeling, Dispatch, and Valuation organized by Di Wu.

Hrvoje Pandžić gave a talk on Energy Storage Participation in Reactive and Proactive Distribution-level Markets at the panel Energy Storage Analytics and Controls: Technical Challenges, Recent Research and Software Tools. This panel was organized by Tu Nguyen. Additionally, Hrvoje Pandžić co-organized the panel Stacking Revenue Streams with Energy Storage with Kenneth Bruninx-

Igor Kuzle participated in several IEEE PES Governing Boards meetings where he presented activities of PES chapters in IEEE Region 8 (Europe, Middle East, and Africa). At the meeting, the Board  accepted the PES activity plans and initiatives for the next year.

We had a great time, reconnected to a number of colleagues and learned on the upcoming topics in our community. See you next year in Orlando, FL!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Rest in Peace Professor Srđan Babić

Our retired Professor Srđan Babić, PhD, died on Saturday, August 20, 2022, at the age of 88. On behalf of our Department, we express our deepest condolences to his family, friends, colleagues and associates.

Professor Babić's final farewell will be on Thursday, August 25, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. at the cemetery Krematorij.

Srđan Babić graduated from the Real High School in Rijeka in 1953, and from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing University of Zagreb, Department of Energy and Power Systems, in 1961. He received his master's degree in 1972 in the field of analysis of internal overvoltages in power networks, and his doctorate in the field of power system stability in 1985. After completing his studies, he was employed at our Department as an assistant in the subject of Power Transmission. In 1973, he was elected to the position of lecturer, in 1986 to the position of assistant professor, and in 1992 to the position of associate professor. He taught the courses Electric Power Networks and Electric Power Systems and Networks, as well as the courses Analysis of High-Voltage Networks and Stability of Power Systems at the postgraduate level. He is a co-author of a university textbook and several teaching texts, the author or co-author of 15 original scientific papers, 24 papers published in the proceedings of scientific and professional meetings, and a certain number of professional studies and reports. He supervised 14 Master's theses and two Doctoral dissertations. He participated in international and domestic scientific projects. He was among our first authors in IEEE journals. His highly important publication in IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery from 1993 is available here.

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
SpliTech conference 2022 held

Our #Teaching and #ResearchAssistants, along with #AssistantProfessor Mateo Beus, #AssociateProfessor Tomislav Capuder and #Professor Hrvoje Pandzic participated in SpliTech conference at Bol, Brač from 5th to 8th of July 2022. For the 7th consecutive year, University of Split (FESB - Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture) organized this 4-day #scientific/ #professional/ #industry conference with main topics related to the fields of #IoT, #RFID, #SmartCities, #Energy and #Health. The #papers presented by our teams are as follows:

- Day-ahead Electricity Price Forecasting Using LSTM Networks (Marija Miletić);
- Machine learning-based forecast of secondary distribution network losses calculated from the smart meters data (Terezija Matijašević);
- Profitable Investment in PV and BES Integrated with EV Charging Stations in Croatia- Myth or Reality? (Mirna Gržanić);
- Laboratory Setup for Stability and Optimization Studies of Hybrid Microgrids (Mateo Beus);
- Hydro Power Unit Speed Control Based on an MPC Algorithm (Mateo Beus);
- Options for Application of Distributed Ledger Technologies in Development and Operation of Energy Communities (Lin Herenčić).

This #conference was a great experience for all of us, both #professionally and #socially, hope to see you there next year!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Croatia E-mobility Long-range test...

A long-range trip (in Croatian terms, not Siberian, nor Australian) was undertaken with an EV – the Hyundai Ionic5 with a 77 kW battery and a theoretical range of, well, does it even matter? The primary goal was to reach the destination – a wind power plant named VE Voštane in the south of Croatia. Why there? Well, to do a quick installation of a newly developed prototype measuring system named: The expert system for measuring lightning strike parameters on Wind Turbines (FER, patent pending). And of course, to get back with zero CO2 emissions (people breathing was not considered). To kill two flies with a single stone (an old national Croatian saying), an e-mobility test was done on the way. The goal was to test various aspects of e-mobility in Croatia, such as: number of charging stations in rural area, availability, installed power capacity, charging speeds, wait times, travel comfort, travel speed and EV vs fuel car travel times. The V2Load function was used to run the electrical equipment and a laptop.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Round Table "Hydroelectric power...

Celebration of the 166th anniversary of the birth of Nikola Tesla, the Round Table "Hydroelectric power station of Tesla's era today" was held in Gospić. Our professor Viktor Milardic was invited to the #roundtable to held a #lecture "Wind power plants in the Republic of Croatia and lightning strikes in wind turbines".

Author: Sara Jovanović
Energy Efficiency and Renewable...
Author: Sara Jovanović
PSCC 2022 conference held

Our Teaching Assistant Nikolina Covic and Professor Hrvoje Pandzic attended PSCC 2022 conference in Porto, Portugal from June 27th until July 1st, where Nikolina presented the paper "Learning Indoor Temperature Predictions for Optimal Load Ensemble Control". At PSCC, which was held every three years since 1963, and bi-annually since 2016, advances in computational methods are presented in traditional power engineering topics such as analysis, planning, and operation of power systems,  but also newer ones such as the integration of renewable sources and the application of artificial intelligence. As this has been the most prestigious power system conference for quite some time now, we are delighted that our Department has been present at all in-person PSCC conferences continuously since 2014, presenting our research topics and results.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Invitation to the lectures held by...

Our Department (FER) invites you to the following lectures:

- System Identification and Passive Networks: A tool for Modelling Power Transformers,

- 500 kV GIS VT Modelling for Internal Transient Overvoltage Studies.

Lectures will be held by Gustavo Henrique Da Costa Oliveira, associate professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR). The #lectures are held as a part of the Erasmus+ program, according to which professor Gustavo Henrique da Costa Oliveira is a #guestlecturer at the our Department and host is assistant professor Božidar Filipović-Grčić, PhD.

Both lectures will be held in Siva Vijećnica at FER on Thursday, July 7th 2022, starting at 10:00 a.m.

The total duration of both lectures is 90 minutes and will be held in English. Everyone interested can attend, and we especially invite students (undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, post-doctoral) and colleagues from the industry who are dealing with power and instrument transformers.

You can find the summary of lectures and the biography of the lecturer below.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Schneider Electric #SMARTUP...

With a desire to invest in new generations of engineering, Schneider Electric organized a #SMARTUP competition for students of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing.

This year, the competition was held simultaneously at the Faculty in Zagreb, Podgorica and Belgrade, with over 50 registered competitors!

As part of the competition, students learned the principles of design using the #EcoStruxurePowerDesign and #EcoStruxurePowerBuild software. They were designers for one day :)

Also... they had the opportunity to learn a little more about #microgrids.

For the end, they spent a few hours in the offices of Schneider Electric and got to know the real work environment.

Congratulations to the winners of the competition and many thanks to professor Havelka who enabled us to carry out such an initiative!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Summer School "Advanced...

Our assistants and PhD students Tomislav Antić, Domagoj Badanjak, Nikolina Čović, Marija Miletić, and Karlo Šepetanc participated in the Summer School "Advanced Optimization, Learning, and Game-Theoretic Models in Energy Systems", held in Copenhagen, June 20 - June 24, 2022, and organized by DTU. They had the chance to learn about novelties in the application of advanced optimization, machine learning, and game-theoretic models in energy systems and share their experience with recognized researchers from industry and academia.

Besides interesting lectures, participants of the DTU Summer School presented the results of their research in the poster session. After all presentations, other participants got the chance to vote for the best poster, and we are proud that they recognized our Nikolina, who got the best poster award.

Congratulations guys, keep up the good work!

Author: Sara Jovanović
MELECON 2022

Our assistants Bojana Barać, Nikolina Čović and Petra Miljan participated at the IEEE Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference (MELECON 2022) that was held in Palermo,  Italy last week. They presented three papers discussing energy storage systems and their control, along with energy management, smart metering and distributed energy resources.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Active month filled with conferences...

Last month we were extremely active, disseminating our #research and #results, #promoting the importance of #electricmobility in the future #powersystem.
 
At the #MIPRO international #conference, Tomislav Capuder gave an invited #lecture on the potentials of #machinelearning in #advancedenergysystems and showed examples of successfully implemented tools within the #DINGO project (with our partners HELB, Sedam IT, HEP ODS) and #bigEVdata project (with our partners HEP d.d. and NEOS). Along with him, Goran Cacic from Green Energy Cooperative (ZEZ), Marko Vukobratović from Base58, Vedran Kirincic from Faculty of Engineering RITEH University of Rijeka and many other lecturers presented their projects and #ideas. We thank our colleagues from HEP ODS Ivan Periša, Renato Ćućić and Vitomir Komen for the invitation and organization of an excellent workshop.
 
Tomislav Capuder, together with our partners Domagoj Puzak from HEP d.d. and Mario Nimac from NEOS gave an invited lecture at the conference #HROUG2022 (Spring HrOUG 2022 - HrOUG 2022 Spring). We are extremely proud of this successful project through which new #chargingstations of various types have been installed throughout Croatia by HEP d.d., and together the partners have developed innovative predictive models that are the basis for #smartmanagement of #electrifiedtraffic. NEOS and Mario Nimac also presented a developed user interface that makes it easier to monitor the behavior of all HEP d.d. charging stations, but also enables #business #decisions based on large amounts of #data.

Author: Sara Jovanović
MIPRO 2022 international conference held

Our researchers and PhD students Luka Budin and Ivan Duilo have presented their research at MIPRO 2022 international conference held from 23 to 27 May in Opatija:

  • Day-ahead Multiple Households Load Forecasting using Deep Learning and Unsupervised Clustering
  • Blockchain Application in Digital Platform FieldWork 4 RES used for Planning and Realization of Renewable Energy Sources Projects

Listed papers were created through research within the project »Development of an integrated solution for asset management and support for investment processes in the design, planning and implementation of the construction of renewable energy sources« under the supervision of prof. Marko Delimar. Business development manager Marin Curavić from ITSistemi has joined during the presentations.

Author: Sara Jovanović
The 44th Annual Assembly of HATZ held

The 44th Annual Assembly of #HATZ was held at FER. Among those present were Minister Radovan Fuchs, the newly elected Rector of the University of Zagreb, Professor Stjepan Lakušić, and representatives of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU), HIS, the Slovenian Academy of Engineering (IAS), etc.

We can boast that the following professors and assistants have received recognitions / awards: Professor Igor Kuzle became a full member and was elected a member of the Committee for Economic and Regional Co-operation; Professor Davor Grgic became a member of the Committee for Ethics; Professor Zeljko Tomsic became the Secretary of the Department of Power Systems and a member of the HATZ presidency. Dr. sc. Ivan Pavić received the Vera Johanides Award. Congratulations!

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
PhD ceremony 2022 held

This year's University of Zagreb PhD promotion ceremony was held at the Croatian National Theatre on Monday, May 20, 2022. We are proud that a number of our PhD graduates proudly received their diplomas: Reni Banov (Supervisor Zdenko Šimić), Mateo Beus (supervisor Hrvoje Pandžić), Marko Išlić (supervisor Ante Marušić), Zora Luburić (supervisor Hrvoje Pandžić), Kristina Pandžić (supervisor Igor Kuzle), Ivan Pavić (supervisor Igor Kuzle), Kristina Perić (supervisor Zdenko Šimić) and Slavica Robić (supervisor Slavko Krajcar). Congratulations to our and all the other PhD graduates of the University of Zagreb! We are positive they will continue to push the boundaries of the science.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Conference MIPRO and roadtrip to...

Conference MIPRO, which was held in Opatija, May 23-27, was a great opportunity to present our European research projects in collaboration with the Croatian TSO – HOPS. We presented projects CROSSBOW, FLEXGRID, FARCROSS and ATTEST. We took this opportunity to introduce our students who are currently working on their Master theses to our world of research and projects. We also took this opportunity to visit hydropower plant Senj, one of the largest power facilities in Croatia. The working part of this trip was fulfilled with a joint dinner with our students, where we listened to their experiences during their studies and learned their visions and thoughts on the job market in the power industry. We learned that many of them already work or have a stipend, proving their high value in the European job market.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our young researchers participated in...

Last week our assistants Ivan Pavić, Mirna Gržanić, Petra Miljan, Marija Miletić and Matej Krpan participated in the International Conference IEEE ENERGYCON 2022 in Riga. They presented three papers and Matej was awarded best presenter for his paper “Incorporating Settling Time Constraints of Energy Storage Systems in Frequency Containment Control Optimization Problems”.

Great job guys! 😊

Author: Sara Jovanović
Workshops under the Interreg Danube...

FER - Department of Energy and Power System held two local workshops under the Interreg Danube STRIDE project. First being held in the city of Pula on the 26th of April, and second in the city of Krk on the 3rd of May.

The aim of the STRIDE project is to improve energy planning through the integration of smart grid concepts in the Danube Region.

The workshops were co-organized with Istrian Regional Energy Agency IRENA, Engineers' Association TECHNE (both in Pula), Regional Energy Agency REA KVARNER, and HEP ODS (both in KrK).

Materials are free and available at STRIDE Smart Energy Platform after login.

We thank all of our partners and presenters. :)

Author: Sara Jovanović
Election for the Department's...

Yesterday we held the election for the Department's head and deputy head. The incumbent head Hrvoje Pandžić and deputy Tomislav Capuder managed to keep their promises from two years ago so they got the opportunity to continue the good work. We believe that they will carry on creating a pleasant workplace environment and doing great things for the Department and its people. Congrats! :)

Author: Sara Jovanović
First EIT URBAN MOBILITY HUB...

FER - Department of Energy and Power Systems is happy to invite you to join us at the EIT Urban Mobility RIS HUB Croatia first one-day conference that will be held on the 9th of June 2022! Why should you apply and attend? This is a one-of-a-kind-event gathering everyone in the urban mobility ecosystem of Croatia! Therefore, if you are representing a city, SME, industry, university, research organization, or are simply an idea holder, student or a freelance expert, join us and share your vision. The applications are open until the 2nd of June :)

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Rector's Award ceremony...

Domagoj Badanjak, assistant at our Department, together with Filip Cecelja and Petra Omrčen received special recognition from the Rector for publishing 15 educational articles, recording 8 educational videos and organizing a conference on the introduction of the euro as a currency in Croatia.

The award ceremony was hosted by the Vice Dean for Education, Associate Professor Mihaela Vranić, and the awards were presented by the Rector of the University of Zagreb, Professor Damir Boras in the presence of the Dean of FER Professor Gordan Gledec.

Congratulations to all winners! More information can be found here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
New Innovation Lab named after the...

The Innovation Laboratory at Algebra's new campus is named after Slavko Krajcar! Bravo!

Slavko Krajcar was a professor, head of our Department, the dean of FER, the first rector of Algebra University College, a great innovator, but above all a person with a cheerful spirit who was always ready to help out and share his knowledge.

Author: Sara Jovanović
SG Lab's innovative control...

At the conference ‘’Better Education for Better Croatia’’ (Bolje obrazovanje bolja Hrvatska), held on April 5, 2022, our Professor Hrvoje Pandžić presented an innovative control framework for the Smart Grid Laboratory. This laboratory is essentially a microgrid containing a hydro power plant, rooftop photovoltaics, battery energy storage, supercapacitors, controllable loads and distribution lines. The presented control framework is based on the laboratory's control framework and is realized using Microsoft Hololens glasses. More videos on the laboratory mixed-reality are available here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Lecture on the dangers of electrified...

In light of the recent tragedies at the Borongaj Campus of the University of Zagreb and in an effort to prevent such a tragedy from ever again occurring, our Professor Viktor Milardić will be holding a lecture on the dangers of electrified railways on Tuesday, April 12, 2022 at 12.00 h.

All interested can listen to the 45- minute lecture (and discussion) on the MS Teams platform and via the Youtube channel of the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our researcher presents at the...

Our researcher Vedran Bobanac, PhD, participated at the "International Battery Seminar and Exhibit 2022", the longest running annual battery event which showcases the latest technological advancements in battery and energy storage research as well as design and manufacturing for applications in automotive, stationary and consumer electronics.

He presented the poster titled "An Accurate Charging Model of Battery Energy Storage" which describes laboratory procedure to obtain accurate dependency of the battery charging capacity on its state of energy.  This dependency is the basis for the proposed accurate battery model which outperforms the baseline model, as verified by experiments on li-ion battery cell. More information about this work can be found here.

Vedran also attended numerous presentations and networked with industry experts. By participating in this conference, he acquired new knowledge and got acquainted with global trends in the field of batteries.

Author: Sara Jovanović
The Energy Democracy Summit SED 2021...

The Energy Democracy Summit SED 2021 (SED) was held in Pula from 3 to 4 April 2022. The event brings together business leaders, policy makers and leading experts to discuss what shapes and implements the energy transition. Our professor Željko Tomšić, together with Goran Krajačić (FSB) and Mladen Zeljko (HED), participated in the panel discussion on ''The development of the energy market and education for an energy transition – lifelong learning'' which was moderated by Ivica Toljan (CROPEX, HED).

Author: Sara Jovanović
Renewable and Sustainable Energy...

As an invited speaker at the International conference on Renewable and Sustainable Energy RENEWABLEMEET 2022 Conference, held from March 21-23 in Dubai, our professor Željko Tomšić gave a presentation titled: Techno-Economic Analysis of the Project of a Photovoltaic Power Plant for Self-Supply of Electricity in Family Houses According to the ESCO Model.

Author: Sara Jovanović
FER professors join the EU Union...

We are proud to announce that our professor, Davor Škrlec, has been appointed as one of the members of the Reference Group for the EU's Union Space Programme (2021-2027) ! The programme aims to provide high quality and up-to-date secure data, services and information related to space when necessary. Additionally, the programme intends to maximize socio-economic benefits, with an emphasis on encouraging the development of innovative and competitive European upstream and downstream sectors, including SMEs and start-ups. This will help in securing more employment opportunities within the EU as well as promoting the widest possible acceptance and use of data, strengthening the security and protection of the EU and its Member States, and strengthening the autonomy of the EU.

You can learn more about the Union Space Programme here.

Other FER members of the Reference Group include: Associate Professor Dubravko Babić, Assistant Professor Josip Lončar, Assistant Professor Dario Bojanjac and Stefan Cikota, PhD.

Congratulations!

Author: Sara Jovanović
"The future of comfortable...

SUPEUS held its 11th consecutive conference "The future of comfortable housing"—BUS which was a huge success! Topics discussed at the conference included innovations in the field of energy efficiency, renewable energy sources and sustainable construction, while students were without a doubt especially interested in hearing about successful examples from practice and learning about how things work outside of the Faculty. Our professor, Hrvoje Pandžić, held the welcome speech and later gave a lecture on the topic: ''How electricity consumers are taking on the role of power plants.''

You can view the entire event (or just the lecture by Professor Pandžić) at the links below:

Recording of the entire conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXmMfUyH0vs&t=678s

Recording of the lecture given by Professor Pandžić: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0afgr9TsYSE&t=5s

We were all once young students who didn’t know how these things looked in real life, thus we are grateful to have someone give us these insights! Bravo SUPEUS, keep up the good work!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Lecture on the EU's approach to...

On the occasion of the UN World Water Day 2022, Professor Davor Škrlec held a lecture at an event organized by the Croatian-Indian Friendship Society on March 18th . The lecture was about the achievements of water management in the EU and the challenges of adaptation to climate change. By adopting the second Circular Economy Action Plan and Water Reuse regulation, which will be put into force in June 2023, the EU will take a step forward in terms of preserving water as a scarce resource and facilitating water reuse as an important part of sustainability. Another two regulations were addressed: the Drinking Water Directive which will improve the quality of tap water and transparency of the water supply business as well as the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive which will implement new standards regarding microplastics in urban waste waters.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Eko zona: Natural Gas and Nuclear Energy

Our professor, Davor Škrlec, PhD, was interviewed on the Croatian Radiotelevision's show Eko zona, in its episode which was broadcasted on March 2, 2022. The topic of the episode was the EU's Regulation on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, otherwise referred to as the Taxonomy Regulation, in which the European Commission has in a delegated act proposed that energy projects involving usage of natural gas and nuclear energy, under certain conditions, become more easily eligible for funding under the European Green Plan. On March 9th, the European Commission adopted this proposed Regulation, which is currently being debated in the European Parliament and it is anticipated that the document will be adopted. You can watch the episode, which was filmed before the war in the Ukraine, here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
The 13th Zagreb PhD Cafe

The 13th Zagreb PhD Cafe was held on Thursday, March 10, at Booksa and Marija attended the event, covering the topic ''Participation of batteries and consumers in maintaining power system frequency''. Together with Marija, two other researchers presented their work in the field of technical sciences and within the Croatian Science Foundation's “Young Researchers’ Career Development Project'': Jelena Šantek Bajto (Faculty of Civil Engineering)--Rehabilitation of historic buildings in the midst of the climate crisis and Petar Škvorc (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture) - Aerodynamic loads of tall buildings with porous facades.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Tracking our work in scientific...

Journal Impact Factors are published on an annual basis. Although it should not be considered as the only indicator of the quality of scientific publications, it is definitely the most common one in the research world. Our website automatically generates and presents our publication achievements and there you can see our most recent publications. As can be seen in the figure below, we started publishing heavily in top-class Q1 journals in 2020. So far in 2022, we already have five publications in Q1 journals. The most common Q1 journals in which we are present are IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and Applied Energy. We are proud of our young research assistants and their supervisors for this admirable ongoing achievement.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Professor Grgić comments on the...

The situation between Russia and the Ukraine has made people start panicking. They are scared for themselves and their loved ones and are watching the news hoping to find some answers and comfort. More often than not, the media ends up encouraging mass histeria instead of calming things down. Luckily, we have someone who is, dare we say, the biggest expert on nuclear energy and its effects: professor Davor Grgić. Professor Grgić has given a few interviews about these current events and has reiterated that there is no need to panic. One of the interviews can be found here. Dear professor, thank you for giving us a professional perspective and for bringing us comfort through your voice of reason.  

Author: Sara Jovanović
Happy Women's Day

To celebrate the International Women’s Day, the women of our Department gathered today to have lunch together. Although we are proud and happy to be working in the atmosphere of respect and equality, we are also aware that there’s a long way to go until our Department gets its first female professor. So we took this opportunity to discuss some necessary improvements to our work environment and diss the patriarchy.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our professor Davor Škrlec...

Our professor Davor Škrlec, PhD, participated in a panel discussion on younger generations' misperceptions and lack of knowledge of the EU which was held at the Croatian Journalists' Association. Professor Škrlec stressed that it is essential to educate the youth about European policies well before college. He also highlighted the need to give youth an opportunity to express what problems they are facing and how they plan on dealing with these problems.

Read more about the panel discussion (in the Croatian language) here: Mlade o EU-u treba učiti i prije fakulteta - Glas Istre

Author: Sara Jovanović
Professor Tomšić receives the “Hrvoje...

It is our great pleasure to inform you that our professor Željko Tomšić has received the “Hrvoje Požar” award for 2021. The Croatian Energy Society gives this award for highly distinguished technical and scientific work in the energy field and professor Tomšić had the privilege of receiving this special recognition from Dr. Tomislav Ćorić, the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of the Republic of Croatia. On behalf of all awardees, professor Tomšić gave an inspiring talk to a distinguished audience on the current challenges of the energy transition.

Congratulations to professor Tomšić for his continuous efforts. His work is highly relevant and recognized! Professor Tomšić, we are proud of you!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Happy International Day of Women and...

Did you know that according to Eurostat data from 2020, 41% of scientists and engineers in the EU were women?

While it can be said that the world of engineering is ruled by men and that technical colleges are mostly “male”, we can definitely say that this is slowly but surely changing.

FER can boast the fact that the number of enrolled female students has grown in recent years, reaching 25% last year which is 3% more than five years ago.

We are glad that all of these young women decided to become part of our world, changing it for the better, just like Hedy Lamarr, Ada Lovelace, Zlata Bartl, Sibila Jelaska...

Because even Beyoncé says: Who run the world?

Girls!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Another Successful PhD Defense in our...

On February 4, 2022, Mirna Gržanić successfully defended her thesis titled "Innovative models of flexible final customers in operation of smart distributed energy systems". We are especially proud of the fact that Mirna published three Q1 Current content journal papers (just to mention some of her success) which means that she completed her doctorate under the Scandinavian model. During her doctorate, Mirna also collaborated with Juan Miguel Morales González and Salvador Pineda Morente from the Universidad de Málaga as well as Marco Giacomo Flammini and Giuseppe Prettico, Ph.D. from the Joint Research Centre who all helped her on her path to learning and creating new ideas.

Members of her PhD committee were professor Marko Delimar (UNIZG-FER), professor Hrvoje Pandzic (UNIZG-FER) and Maja Bozicevic Vrhovcak (Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar).

Mirna worked on numerous projects for the Hrvatska zaklada za znanost (Croatian Science Foundation) and H2020 and we are delighted that she will stay on board now as a postdoc within the Department DEPS.

Congrats, Mirna, keep on the great work! :)

Author: Sara Jovanović
Lara Topol - senior operator at the...

We are very proud of our former student Lara Topol who works at the Nuclear Power Plant KRSKO, Slovenia. Lara graduated from the Department of Energy and Power Systems, FER, in 2014. During her studies, as an excellent student she was awarded a scholarship from the Krsko Nuclear Power Plant where started working after her studies. She was first trained for the position of a nuclear reactor operator but she moved on from this to work in the control room, first as an operator and then as a senior operator. She is currently responsible for training operators in their new roles in the control room.

We congratulate Lara for her achievemenets and wish her much success in career milestones which lie ahead of her!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Dr. Minea Skok gives lecture at FER...

Our PhD class titled Optimization in Power Networks had very high and diverse attendance this year. PhD students enrolled into the class from both our department and other departments at FER, from the industry, as well as from Bosnia and Herzegovina. After four days of intense instruction given by professor Hrvoje Pandžić, the final lecture on meta-heuristic optimization was given by our dear friend Dr. Minea Skok, chief scientist at the Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar. The students were thrilled with the lecture and we thank Dr. Minea Skok very much for her time.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Zagreb's FER withdraws more EU...

The Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing started 2022 with a record of 260 scientific research projects, making it the leading institution in Croatia in terms of the number of active projects for another year in a row!

Thanks to the projects, FER employs 350 people, which is almost half of the total number of employees. Therefore, the faculty has the status of the most desirable partner in applied research and innovation development in Croatia.

With 34 projects, we are happy and honored to be part of this story! 😊

Click here for more details.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Professor Davor Grgic (FER)...

On January 26, 2022, professor Davor Grgic (FER) participated in a conference titled ''World of Energy—Energy Security in an Era of Fast Decarbonization'' which was held at the Westin Hotels & Resorts Zagreb. The conference was also attended by: the Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal Frans Timmermans; the Croatian Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Tomislav Coric; the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic; the CEO of E.ON Hrvatska Andreas Rörig; the owner and president of the board of the Energia Naturalis Group Pavao Vujnovac; the President of INA Grupa's Management Board Sándor Fasimon; the President of the Management Board at HOPS Croatian Transmission System Operator Ltd. Tomislav Plavsic; the President of the Management Board at the Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency Marijan Krpan; and the CEO at the Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar Dražen Jakšić.

Opening the conference, Frans Timmermans reaffirmed Croatia's ambitions to decarbonise the domestic energy #sector in line with the EC's "Ready for 55" legislative package, which envisages significantly accelerating the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. Following this welcome address, a panel (attended by Ćorić, Rörig, Vujnovac and Fasimon) was held on the topic of how to align these plans with the energy security imperative. Later, a second panel (attended by Plavšić, Krpan, Jakšić and Grgić) was held on the topic "Energy Security and Investments".

Author: Sara Jovanović
Marko Delimar is running for the...

We are pleased to share with you a big announcement – our professor Marko Delimar is running for the position of the Dean of FER!

Marko has our support of his candidacy as well as the support of the current Dean.

As the (former) vice dean for education and the head of our study programme in Šibenik, he pushed boundaries and created new opportunities for students and staff.

We are confident that as dean he would continue to do this at an even higher level.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Webinar on „Fast Frequency Control in...

Dr. Vivek Prakash, our postodoctoral researcher, will be presenting at a webinar on „Fast Frequency Control in Low Inertia Grids“ organised by the IEEE PES Student Chapter, Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur.  The webinar will be held on January 29th from 03:00 until 04:00PM (India standard time). Anyone interested can apply for free here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
"Rikard Podhorsky" award...

Our professor Igor Kuzle has won the "Rikard Podhorsky" award of the Croatian Academy of Engineering! Professor Kuzle has significantly contributed to the scientific and professional advancement in the application of various concepts of smart grid management. These concepts are aimed at increasing the flexibility and efficiency of power systems which are under conditions of uncertainty created by mass integration of renewable energy sources. Congratulations! :)

Author: Sara Jovanović
Participation in the program...

Professor Grgić was hosted on the HRT television show titled Druga Strana where he gave an interview on the topic: ''Are nuclear power plants becoming socially acceptable?''

The entire interview can be viewed here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Research papers by our assistants...

Our young assistants and professors ended this year in the best possible way 😊 Research papers by Matija Kostelac and Mirna Gržanić were published in the prestigious journals Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (IF: 14.982) and Applied Energy (IF: 9.746). These journals are among the best and most respected in the field of energy. Mirna's article is titled "Prosumers as active market participants: A systematic review of evolution of opportunities, models and challenges", while Matija's article is titled "Uncertainty modelling of an industry facility as a multi-energy demand response provider". Both of our colleagues conducted their research within the IMAGINE project lead by FER's professor Tomislav Capuder and funded by the Hrvatska zaklada za znanost (Croatian Science Foundation) and HEP ODS.

Bravo, rock on guys! 😊

Author: Sara Jovanović
Christmas is here!

This year, we can proudly say that the ZVNE has the most beautifully decorated Christmas tree! First, our "big" helpers assembled the tree stand, attached and spread out the branches and then set up the tree in the hallway. Then, on Sunday after enjoying the Saint Nicolas theatrical show at FER, our "little" helpers came to add a bit of their own magic which gave us the final product which you can see in the photos. Thanks kids. You're great! ❤

 

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our department dominates the award...

Every year in late November our Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) gives a number of awards at the annual FER Day celebration and our department is proud to have received several notable awards. 
 
A Bronze Plaque ‘’Josip Lončar’’ was awarded to our recently graduated Masters student Otto Heide, who launched his career at the Croatian Transmission System Operator (HOPS Ltd.). Our PhD students who graduated in 2021, Zora Luburić, Kristina Pandžić and Ivan Pavić, received the Silver Plaques ‘’Josip Lončar’’ for extraordinary PhD theses. Only five such awards were given this year and our exceptional researchers received three of them! All three awarded PhDs were defended according to the so-called Scandinavian system, as they all published three or more papers in renowned research journals. 
 
Furthermore, FER awarded our assistant professor Božidar Filipović-Grčić the science award for outstanding research results in the last five years, while our Smart Grid Lab (SGLab) headed by professor Igor Kuzle received the award for the laboratory with the most internationally recognized group of researchers at FER. Finally, this year’s best PhD student in the power systems PhD program is Matej Krpan who was awarded the Frano Luetić award.
 
This year, aside from attendees from scientific, educational, economic and military institutions, the ceremony was also attended by esteemed guests from the government, including the President of the Republic of Croatia Zoran Milanović, the State Secretary at the Central State Office for the Development of Digital Society Bernard Gršić, and the Mayor of the City of Zagreb Tomislav Tomašević who addressed the audience at the beginning of the event. The dean of FER, Gordan Gledec, PhD, also gave an impressive and memorable keynote speech in which he emphasized the need to stimulate entrepreneurship, especially startups, innovation and research. 
 
The Department of Energy and Power Systems is grateful to have been able to support the works of its highly recognized faculty and staff and it is exceptionally proud of their achievements!

Link to the video recording of the event: youtu.be/JcQxhm_dVvU

Photos from the event can be found below.

 

Author: Marija Tafra
Matej Krpan wins the "Frano...

We are proud to announce that our doctoral student Matej Krpan has been awarded the "Frano Luetić" award for the year 2020/2021 by the FER faculty council for excellence in postgraduate studies in the field of electrical power engineering.

Matej earned this award for coauthoring 14 journal papers (of which 10 are Q1/Q2) and 13 conference papers (of which 3 received excellent paper awards), for peer-reviewing more than 60 papers for renowned journals and conferences, and for more than 30 industrial studies for electric utility companies and private investors during his 5 years at the FER - Department of Energy and Power Systems.

Congratulations Matej! Keep up the good work!

The "Frano Luetić" award was established in 2019 on the initiative of the Luetić family who also donate the monetary prize to award winners. Previous winners are now postdoctoral researchers at our Department, Ivan Pavić (2019/2020) and Ninoslav Holjevac (2018/2019).

Author: Sara Jovanović
Our Department at the 15th Croatian...

The 15th Croatian CIGRE Session was held on November 7 - 10, 2021. Besides an opportunity to catch up with long-time colleagues and embracing new ideas, our Department of Energy and Power Systems was well represented with 21 papers! All the papers were presented by our young #esearchers and well accepted within the audience. We are happy to contribute to a collaborative global community committed to the world's leading knowledge development programme for creating and sharing power system expertise. List of our presentations can be found below.

We’ll see you next year at the Croatian CIGRE 15th Symposium on Power System Operation!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Another Successful PhD Defense in our...

On November 12, 2021, Mateo Beus successfully defended his thesis "Model predictive control in hydro turbine power control" under the Scandinavian model after publishing three papers in JCR journals. Members of his PhD committee were prof. Mato Baotic (UNIZG-FER), prof. Andrej Jokić (UNIZG-FSB), prof. Igor Kuzle (UNIZG-FER). Mateo was a teaching assistant during his studies and now he is a postdoc with UNIZG-FER.

Congrats, Mateo, keep on the great work! :)

Author: Sara Jovanović
Koncar held a lecture in Electric...

Our professor Božidar Filipović-Grčić hosted a team from Koncar Power Transformers Ltd. which held a lecture in Electric Power Systems 1. Thank you all. It was a pleasure!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Participation in the program...

Prof. Zeljko Tomsic participated in HRT's program called "Poslovni plan". The topic was: Nuclear power plants and EU Green Plan Taxonomy.

Author: Sara Jovanović

On the 21st and 22nd of October, fifty of FER's 1st to 5th year students visited the hydro power plant (HPP) Jaruga inside the Krka National Park, HPP Zakučac, HPP Prančevići, the Prančevići dam, HPP Kraljevac and the wind power plant Voštane-Kamensko together with its substation.

This trip was organized through the PowerTrip project which aims to promote Croatia's beautiful nature, low-carbon technology and sustainability and the field of electric power engineering. The PowerTrip project is coorganized by KSET, the Department of energy and power systems and the Croatian chapter of IEEE PES. The 50 students were accompanied by Matej Krpan and Marija Miletić, research & teaching assistants at the Department.

HPP Jaruga is one of the oldest hydroelectric power plants in the world, while HE Zakučac is the largest Croatian power plant and HPP Kraljevac is a living museum where large, old Ganz turbine-generators can still be seen.

We thank our hosts HEP-Proizvodnja and ENCRO for showing us these facilities and for enabling the students to learn more about electric power generation and high-voltage technology.

Take a look below at some of the moments from our awesome trip!

 

Author: Matej Krpan
A new research laboratory was...

In September 2021, a new research laboratory, the Demand Response Lab (DRLab), was established at FER, headed by professor Hrvoje Pandzic.

The laboratory is designed as an active household consisting of a series of devices (battery stack, electric vehicle charger and numerous household appliances) whose electricity consumption is managed in order to respond to signals from an aggregator or a power system operator.

Within the DRLab, two projects are being implemented that deal with the demand response from smart households (ANIMATION - HRZZ) and the development of prototypes of connected stationary battery energy storage systems (USBSE - EFRR). Both projects are fully in line with the new power system paradigm according to which current passive electricity customers will become active power system participants.

More information about FER’s new research lab and a few photos can be found below.

Namely, given the increase in the share of renewable energy sources, there are increasingly more non-controllable electricity generators in the system (wind and solar power plants) and the balancing of the system is shifting to the consumption side. It is, therefore, important to act in two directions: to awaken the market for the demand response for households and activate their flexibility and to develop energy storage systems for storing energy from renewable energy sources.

Active consumers who can move their consumption over time, so that it coincides with production from renewable energy sources, are key to a very high share of electricity production from renewable sources and consequently for the sustainable development of modern society. Because of their controllable devices, active consumers can manage their consumption and change their load profiles. Although these devices have relatively small individual powers, their aggregation can achieve great potential in terms of demand response programs.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Students accompanied by 12 group...

On Saturday, October 23, 2021, 70 primary-school students accompanied by 12 group leaders visited the Smart Grid Laboratory at FER as part of the RADDAR program. Doctoral students Mateo Beus and Marija Čuljak showed the students a hydroelectric power plant including all subsystems, battery systems, a charging station for electric vehicles and explained the concept of the entire laboratory as well as the power system in general. Following this, the students paid a visit to the Demand Response Lab where prof. Hrvoje Pandzic presented to them what their smart homes will look like in the future. In addition to showing great interest and curiosity for these topics, our future power system engineers gave us some very innovative suggestions on how to improve the lab. Of course, we invited them to help us turn these ideas into reality!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Building a new nuclear power plant...

Our professor Davor Grgic gave an interview to  RTL Hrvatska on building a new nuclear power plant with green money from EU funds. The full interview can be found here.

Author: Sara Jovanović
We have been awarded with the...

We are proud to announce that and researchers from our department, together with Invento Capital Partners, the North West Croatia Regional Energy Agency (REGEA) and Hrvatski Telekom, have been awarded with the national EIT Urban mobility hub. This way we will be able to support the local innovation ecosystem and start-ups and we will boost innovations in urban mobility.

It's time to make Croatian innovative technologies available to the wider, interntional market.

Our team will be led by professor Tomislav Capuder.

We look forward to new projects and #collaborations and believe that decarbonization of the transportation sector is one of the key aspects of the energy transition. Feel free to contact us if you have questions or collaboration ideas or if you are interested in working with us. You can also find some of our recent published EV research here:

Electric vehicle based smart e-mobility system – Definition and comparison to the existing concept - ScienceDirect

Low carbon technologies as providers of operational flexibility in future power systems - ScienceDirect

Review of challenges and assessment of electric vehicles integration policy goals: Integrated risk analysis approach - ScienceDirect

Author: Sara Jovanović
The development of the power grid is...

As part of a panel discussion on solar technologies in Croatia held at the Sunny Days conference in Hvar recently, our post-doctoral researcher Ninoslav Holjevac from the Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing gave a presentation titled ''Solar potential in Croatia in terms of integration into the grid and beyond''.

Holjevac gave an overview of the current situation in Croatia, the development of a system for a better future and solutions for the solar and green transition. "We have reached the point where we must take urgent action. The energy transition is unquestionable. We need it. However, the grid is limited and the one we are currently using was built many years ago; its current capacity is close to being maximized," Holjevac warned. He added that solar energy has not had a dynamic development like wind energy, but this is now certainly changing." All of this together represents a significant increase in demand on the transmission and distribution system. A ‘highway’ must be built which will also enable the integration of large solar panels. We need to take action today in order to overcome problems on time,'' said Holjevac.

He pointed out the significant potential of the Sun in Croatia where there are many locations with 2,500 or more hours of sunshine, noting that we have not yet taken advantage of this:  ''There is still a lack of solar panels from Zadar to Dubrovnik; there are too few rooftops solar panels; and there aren't enough solar collectors. There is also a lack of experience needed in order to begin more active project implementation," he said.

Speaking further about problems and opportunities, he noted summer as being a critical period. During peak season, solar panels contribute minimally because the problem with power supply takes place between 9:30 pm and 10:30 pm: “Solar panels are not a solution for grid problems for the period between June to September. Solar energy is great for energy transition as it is inexpensive energy, but we still can’t do without the grid. We need both a grid and solar panels and it is no coincidence that one relies on the other. Batteries and similar technologies help, but to a limited extent. We still can't do without the grid. It will be needed, even with an increase of solar panels on roofs."

He also mentioned the long process of developing the power grid – a 400 kV project lasts 10 years. He stressed that there is an enormous number of requests for connection and the system must keep up with these requests. "The development of the power grid is essential for the continuation of the green transition and the rise of large solar panels. Solar panels will contribute to the problem but will also resolve the problem. I am convinced that from a technical standpoint, things will be solvable. These are all opportunities. They are also in agro solars while the significant pilot project ‘Slavonia’ is unused. Certain surfaces can also benefit from floating solars and, additionally, solar panels are not affected by polluted surfaces. Also, there is opportunity in hydrogen, which is one of the pillars of the energy transition,'' Holjevac listed all the potentials of solar panels.

Finally, he concluded that the development of the system, primarily a 400 kV grid, is needed for further integration of a significant share of solar panels, as well as optimal use of the current capacity and opportunities provided by solutions that are lower in capital and less time intensive. Among other things, changes in the current system, the legislation and the rules are necessary. "We need to develop a dialogue among all stakeholders and move towards a green and sunny future," Holjevac said.

 

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Lucija Matulin won the Rector's...

Lucija Matulin, a student of the Department of Energy and Power Systems, won the Rector's Award for her work entitled "Development and implementation of SCADA system simulator for microgrid laboratory" in the category of individual scientific and artistic works. Lucija designed the architecture and implemented a simulation tool to simulate the operation of the SCADA system in the Smart Gird Lab (SGLab) laboratory. This tool has greatly facilitated the work with the laboratory microgrid in Covid conditions and has great potential for upgrading in terms of a more realistic simulation of real network conditions, adding new electrical parameters and use outside the laboratory environment. The research and development was carried out as part of the activities of the project of the Croatian Science Foundation project IMAGINE under the mentorship of associate professor Tomislav Capuder and co-mentorship by Alen Hrga.

 

Congratulations to Lucija on winning the award! :)

Author: Sara Jovanović
Slavica Robić defended her thesis...

On Thursday, September 2, 2021, Slavica Robic, Assistant Managing Director at North-West Croatia Regional Energy Agency (REGEA), defended her thesis “Method for defining energy poverty threshold based on energy, climate, social and health indicators”, mentored by professor Slavko Krajcar. Her research has contributed to a better understanding of energy poverty as a multidimensional problem which requires a systematic approach. Research has shown that living in energy poverty results in adverse impacts on physical and mental health with decreased ability to take part in activities within the community. The tested method is based on an analytical hierarchy process by which decision-makers can analyse the situation and determine the criteria and measures for mitigating energy poverty. The presented research offers solutions applicable in practice, but also lays a good foundation for further research. Research leading to this thesis has been published in several scientific and expert papers, studies and policy proposals including a chapter in a book.

Author: Sara Jovanović
ZVNE staff at SpliTech 2021

IMAGINE project manager, professor Tomislav Capuder, along with his team member professor Hrvoje Pandzic, participated in the sixth edition of the SpliTech 2021 international conference. During the conference, members of our team participated as panelists of the PANTERA and SUPERRA projects led by the European Energy Research Alliance. They discussed the presence of Croatian research institutions in projects from the EU program and how this participation should be increased and strengthened by Croatian institutions in order for them to be more present as coordinators and partners in projects under the upcoming Horizon Europe program.

Author: Sara Jovanović
Prof. Pandžić is among the top 1% of...

The Department of Energy and Power Systems can proudly say that it has a member who is among the top 1% of the world's best #scientists! Professor Hrvoje Pandzic was included on the list of the most influential scientists for 2019 in a study published by a research group from Stanford University in California. In the study, about 160,000 of the world's most cited scientists in all disciplines were ranked by citations. In addition to this list, a list of the most influential scientists throughout their scientific careers was also published, which includes a total of 47 Croatian scientists.

You can read the full paper here.

Bravo Hrvoje! :)

Author: Sara Jovanović
Traditional ZVNE football pool

Our Department hosted the traditional ZVNE football pool for the results of the European Football Championship. This is a chance for employees and friends of the Department to fight for eternal glory. The pool has been held for every European Championship and World Cup since 1982 with a few exceptions. The participants guess the champion, rank the four leading teams as well as guessing the result of the first match played by Croatian team. Even partial guesses earn points for advancement in the official ranking of ZVNE pool participants. The first place is currently held by Radoslav Zelić, a long-time laboratory technician at the Department, followed by many notable names of Croatian electrical power engineering such as Hrvoje Požar, who holds 33rd place.

 

Author: Marija Miletić

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Additional photovoltaic capacity...

On Monday, July 26, we connected another set of solar panels to the grid. At this point, FER has 84 kW of installed photovoltaics capacity. Under the assumption that each kW of installed photovoltaic capacity in Zagreb produces around 1100 kWh of electricity, this power plant reduces FER's electricity bill by over 90 thousand HRK per year (1 kWh of electricity in high tariff costs around 1 HRK). Additionally, we are performing peak shaving which reduces our power payments by a couple hundred HRK per month. The photovoltaics installation at FER is an ongoing activity which is led by our research assistant Hrvoje Bašić, with the help of the entire Department of Energy and Power Systems. They were installed with the support of the Croatian Science Foundation, European Social Fund and the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund.

With finalizing this installation, we are already starting new projects that will result in new photovltaic capacity on FER's rooftops. 

Author: Hrvoje Pandžić
Two PhD theses defended

The final week before the vacation season at FER was also a week of great scientific accomplishments as we had two PhD theses defended, both of which resulted in Summa Cum Laude! First, on Monday, July 19, Kristina Pandžić defended her thesis ''Multilevel Optimization Models for Energy Storage Planning and Operation'', while Ivan Pavić on the following day defended his thesis ''Optimal Energy and Reserves Scheduling through Controllable Charging and Discharging of a Fleet of Electric Vehicles''. Both doctorates were defended in the so-called Scandinavian style, as both candidates published a large number of papers in very prestigious scientific journals during their studies. Congratulations, Kristina and Ivan, your work is extraordinary!

Author: Sara Jovanović
Outage in the Nuclear Power Plant Krško

The operating cycle at the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) Krško lasts for 18 months after which an outage takes place. An outage is a planned shutdown of the power plant with the aim of replacing nuclear fuel, performing major maintenance activities, inspections, supervised tests, and technological upgrades called modifications. All of these actions ensure that the power plant can operate smoothly and reliably for another cycle.

The outage 2021 started on April 1 and lasted for 34 days. The main activities included replacement of almost half of the fuel elements in the reactor core and inspection of the reactor vessel, control rod guides, and steam generator pipes. The main modifications from the Safety Upgrade Programme were implementation of an alternative system for Safety Injection (ASI), an alternative system for Auxiliary Feedwater (AAF), an alternative system for Residual Heat Removal (ARHR) and Reactor Coolant Pumps’ (RCP) high temperature seals.

It is important to note that the outage 2021 was carried out in full and successfully despite the coronavirus pandemic. This was the result of protective measures which were undertaken such as wearing FFP-2 face masks, regular disinfection, automatic body temperature measurement at the entrance, testing at the parking lot, and organization of working hours over a 24-hour period to ensure a minimal number of people at the site at the same time.

Around 600 Krško NPP employees and 1900 subcontractors from Croatia, Slovenia and abroad participated in the outage. The University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) is accredited by the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration to supervise safety-related outage activities. Our colleagues Davor Grgić, Siniša Šadek, and Štefica Vlahović from the Department of Energy and Power Systems were involved in the regulatory supervision of Emergency Control Room modification, changes of containment sump level monitoring, installation of a radioactivity monitor on the PCFV exhaust line, testing of fire protections system in the plant’s critical areas and main electrical equipment, testing of containment integrity, performance of Hydrogen passive autocatalytic recombiners (PAR) and performance of Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS).

Author: Sara Jovanović

Prof. Grgić was interviewed by Nacional to talk about the current state of nuclear energy in Croatia and the world. The full interview can be found here.

Author: Matej Krpan
Our PhD student Mirna received the...

We are proud to announce that our PhD student Mirna Gržanić received the best poster award at the 2021 PhD Day. The poster, titled “Innovative models of flexible final customers in operation of smart distributed energy systems”, was recognised by a committee comprised of distinguished professors from FER. Mirna's research interests include active consumers, energy communities, smart distributed energy systems and balance group participation in the electricity markets.

PhD Day was inspired by top universities from around the world, as an open gathering where doctoral students publicly present their research results and everyone interested can get insight into the diversity and quality of scientific work at the faculty. Through this event, we not only wish to increase the visibility of research activities and accomplishments of FER, but also to enrich the existing Research seminar of the doctoral studies at FER, through presentation of results and exchange of personal experiences among the doctoral students. The sixth PhD Day was held on Tuesday, July 6th, 2021.

 

Congratulations Mirna, rock on girl! 😊

 

Author: Sara Jovanović
Passing away of Prof. Slavko Krajcar

On Friday, June 18, 2021, at the age of 71, our esteemed Professor Slavko Krajcar, PhD, passed away. Professor Krajcar (born in 1951) made an exceptional contribution to the development  of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, to which he served as dean from 1998 to 2002 and afterwards from 2002 to 2006 he became the Head of the Department of Energy and Power Systems of which he remained a faculty member until his death. He will always be remembered as a respected scientist, expert and colleague.

We will be thankful to Professor Krajcar for everything he has done for our Department, his energy and visionary leadership will forever brighten our Department. On behalf of the Department of Energy and Power Systems and all of its employees, as well as myself personally, I express our deepest condolences to his family, friends, colleagues and associates.

Rest in peace, dear Professor.

Author: Hrvoje Pandžić
Prof. Hrvoje Pandžić had an interview...

Prof. Hrvoje Pandžić was interviewed on the RTL channel's TV show Potraga. Prof. Pandžić talked about the safety of Li-Ion batteries, their environmental impact and about research of battery technologies in the Smart Grid Laboratory (SGLab).

 

Author: Matej Krpan
WINDLIPS project final workshop...

The roundtable, organized as part of the final workshop of the WINDLIPS project - Wind Energy Integration in Low-Inertia Power Systems, was held on April 16th, 2021 over the MS Teams platform. The roundtable gathered more than 100 participants from academia and the industry. Read more in the extended version.

 

Author: Matej Krpan
ZVNE's PhD and Master's...

Our fresh PhD student Nikolina Čović was awarded with the annual "Hrvoje Požar" award for a highly relevant Master's thesis by the Croatian Energy Society (HED - Hrvatsko energetsko društvo). Additionally, our PhD student Otto Heide was awarded with the annual "Hrvoje Požar" award for excellent results in his Master's studies. Additional information is available here.

Congratulations to you both. We are proud of you!

Author: Hrvoje Pandžić