Reflections on the World Sustainable Energy Days Conference 2024
At the beginning of March, I attended the World Energy Days Conference 2024, based in Wels, Austria. This comprised of four themed days: young energy researchers, biomass, energy policy, and industrial energy efficiency. I was selected to present a poster at the young energy researchers conference day. The title of which was “The efficiencies and morphologies of energy form conversion pathways”1. The accompanying paper has been published as part of the conference proceedings.
The conference had a strong industrial presence as well as the usual academic presence and sustainable energy conferences. It was a great opportunity to meet many new researchers across Europe and beyond. The exclusively young researcher day allowed for lots of great conversation and networking with peers.
My poster was successful, with lots of interest, a request for data, and a request for methodology sharing. This was based in my masters’ research (2021), so it was satisfying to finally get it out to people.
Ella with her poster at the conference.
One criticism was that there was not enough structured discussion. The conference consisted of back-to-back presentations with no allotted time for questions. I think it is always important to have an opportunity to discuss or probe presenters for more information.
Shuttle buses left from the hotel at 7:30am and returned at 10:15pm. So after a week of long days full of talking and listening, I had a quiet weekend digesting the information overload. On the way home I stopped off in beautiful Salzburg. I would highly recommend visiting this city. It is nestled between mountains and the River Salzach and as the birthplace of Mozart, so much historic culture. Until next year!
1Jennings, E.T. and Cullen, J.M. (2024) ‘The morphologies and efficiencies of energy form conversion chains’, World Sustainable Energy Days, 2024; 5 – 8 March. Wels, Austria.
