DISTRICT ENERGY - Laboratory for refrigeration and district energy

SDEWES Conference 2025 Dubrovnik, Croatia

admin — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 13:56:23 +0000

The 20th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) in Dubrovnik hosted 685 on-site and 115 online participants from 68 countries presented 839 papers, showcasing an impressive range of recent research on sustainable energy, water, and environmental systems.

Our team had the pleasure of presenting on the final day (when many were already running low on energy), yet we were happy to still see engaged researchers in the audience.

Assist. Prof. Katja Klinar presented part of the modeling activities related to the pandaprosumer tool. The title of presentation was: pandaprosumer: Modeling the integration of booster heat pumps and combined heat & power systems into a district heating network.

This work presented was done within the SENERGY NETS project, funded by the European Union 🇪🇺.

A big thank-you to the organizers for such a well-run and inspiring event, and to everyone contributing to the dialogue on a more sustainable energy future!

More information: https://www.dubrovnik2025.sdewes.org/index

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Conference SZE 2025, Portorož

admin — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 14:05:10 +0000

Between 8th and 10th of June international conference SZE 2025 took place in Portorož. Main topics of this year’s meeting were regional transformations of energy systems. Talks focused on energy and economical efficiency, digitalization of energy systems, renewable energy sources, heating and cooling technologies, district energy systems, heat pumps etc.

LAHDE team presented the following topics:

Andrej Kitanovski: 50% / 50% / 50%: UNTAPPED POTENTIALS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR HEATING AND COOLING
Nada Petelin: ENHANCING THE PERFORMANCE OF HOUSEHOLD REFRIGERATORS WITH PHASE CHANGE MATERIALS
Izak Oberčkal Pluško: MODELING HEAT PUMPS WITH THERMAL STORAGE IN DISTRICT HEATING SYSTEMS

Besides members of LAHDE, Marko Keber from University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering also presented his topic:

Marko Keber: MODELING OF DISTRICT ENERGY NETWORKS WITH MINIMAL DATA

Conference was an excellent opportunity for exchanging ideas, listening to exceptional speakers and connecting with with researchers and industry experts.

More informations on conference can be found here: https://www.sze.si/en/about-the-conferences-2025/

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SENERGY NETS project presented at the SZE conference in Portorož

admin — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 07:56:34 +0000

From June 8–10, part of research within the SENERGY NETS project was presented at the #SZE conference in sunny Portorož. The focus of the conference was the regional transformation of energy systems.

The presentation, titled “Modeling Heat Pumps with Thermal Storage in District Heating Systems,” was delivered by Izak Oberčkal Pluško from the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

Key topics presented included:

Introduction to the SENERGY-NETS project
Overview of the panda tools ecosystem
The newly developed pandaprosumer library for modeling flexible prosumers
A case study of a Booster Heat Pump (BHP) unit and its role in revitalizing an existing district heating system

The conference covered a wide range of relevant topics such as:

Energy and economic efficiency
Digitalization in energy systems
Renewable energy sources
Heating and cooling technologies
District heating systems
Heat pump integration and more

The contribution by Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana offered valuable insights into the digitalization and modernization of district heating through open-source tools and applied modeling.

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Exergy analyses of low-temperature district heating systems with different sanitary hot-water boosters

admin — Fri, 17 May 2019 06:37:53 +0000

The paper Exergy analyses of low-temperature district heating systems with different sanitary hot-water boosters was published in Entropy Journal.

Abstract:

This paper presents an exergy-efficiency analysis of low-temperature district heating systems (DHSs) with different sanitary hot-water (SHW) boosters. The main objective of this study was to compare the exergy efficiencies of a DHS without a booster to DHSs with three different types of boosters, i.e., electric-, gas-boiler- and heat-pump-based, during the winter and summer seasons. To achieve this, we developed a generalized model for the calculation of the exergy efficiency of a DHS with or without the booster. The results show that during the winter season, for a very low relative share of SHW production, the DHS without the booster exhibits favorable exergy efficiencies compared to the DHSs with boosters. By increasing this share, an intersection point above 45 °C for the supply temperatures, at which the higher exergy efficiency of a DHS with a booster prevails, can be identified. In the summer season the results show that a DHS without a booster at a supply temperature above 70 °C achieves lower exergy efficiencies compared to DHSs with boosters at supply temperatures above 40 °C. The results also show that ultra-low supply and return temperatures should be avoided for the DHSs with boosters, due to higher rates of entropy generation.

The open access article is available here.

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International Conference of SZE 2019

lahde — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 12:26:58 +0000

The International Conference of SZE (Slovenian Energy Association) took place in the beginning of April in Porotož. It hosted more than 200 attendees, who presented 47 contributions in sustainable and clean energy supply for heating and cooling.

The LAHDE presented:

Comparative techno-economic analysis of using gas engine-driven heat pumps in heat and cooling energy supply, Boris Vidrih, Andrej Kitanovski, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Urban Odar, Gospodarsko interesno združenje za distribucijo zemeljskega plina
Refrigeration challenges: review of the most promising future technologies, Katja Klinar, Andrej Kitanovski, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana
Capillary tube optimisation using global optimisation algorithms, Luka Lorbek, Andrej Kitanovski, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana
Modelling of a condenser for a heat pump dryer, Nada Petelin, Alojz Poredoš, Andrej Kitanovski, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Pero Gatarić Gorenje d.d.
The role of heat pumps in district energy systems, Primož Poredoš, Andrej Kitanovski, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Franc Marovt, Kronoterm

More information is available on SZE website.

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