Better energy management for Big Science

Lund, 13 October 2011. For the first time, international experts on energy and representatives from large-scale laboratories are getting together to explore new ideas on energy management, identify best practices and implement ways of effective collaboration. This community meets today in Lund, Sweden, at the European Spallation Source (ESS) for a 2-day workshop co-organized by CERN ¹ , ESS and the European Association of National Research Facilities (ERF).

“This workshop places the questions of better energy management in Big Science definitively on the international science agenda,” said Thomas Parker, ESS Energy Manager. “We are honoured that the entire European large-scale laboratory community, as well as overseas guests, have come to Lund and we see this as a sign that the ideas that we have promoted are catching on.”

"The idea of promoting this workshop comes from our commitment to share and improve energy management policies with other large-scale laboratories and organizations," said Frédérick Bordry, Head of CERN’s Technology Department. “Energy management is, and will be increasingly, a mandatory key criterion in the design and operation of accelerators, and more generally for scientific facilities. It should not be seen as a constraint but as an opportunity to have more efficient installations and to make a concrete contribution to energy and environmental issues. The workshop is also an opportunity for presenting technologies from CERN that can play a role in the improvement of energy efficiency and quality.”

The workshop will focus on: efficiency and optimization of energy supply, energy recovery, storage and stability; challenges for heat recycling systems and water saving (energy conversion, heat recovery, high-temperature cooling loops). The discussion will also explore current and future strategic and financial challenges.

“Large-scale European research infrastructures attract the best researchers through the quality of their cutting-edge technical support, so the technical and managerial staff are continuously developing the best relevant technologies. Many of these are of interest to society and are connected to big challenges, such as improving the production and use of energy,” said Carlo Rizzuto, President of Sincrotrone Trieste and Chair of ERF. ”The idea of the conference is to make the most of the laboratories’ capabilities in this context - whether the large analytical laboratories such as ERF and ESS or the large physics laboratories such as CERN. We aim to improve the capability to introduce and demonstrate techniques and approaches that save energy and minimize the carbon footprint."