PESS & PELSS 2022 Press Release

The Power and Energy Student Summit (PESS) and Power Electronics Student Summit (PELSS) have been held for the first time as a joint professional conference in the fields of electrical power engineering and power electronics. The Power and Energy Student Summit is already an established event, which was combined with the Power Electronics Student Summit, organized for the first time, as a joint conference. The event was aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students, who were able to gain their first experience of publishing their own publications in front of a specialist audience as part of the conference. The subsequent discussions and expert talks served as a platform for scientific exchange as well as for networking.

Under the direction of Professor Martin Braun and Professor Marco Jung, the conference was organized by the Department of Energy Management and Operation of Electrical Networks at the University of Kassel, the Department of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering & Technical Journalism at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, and Fraunhofer IEE. After the PESS was organized digitally last year, the three-day event could take place in presence at the Fraunhofer IEE in Kassel this year. Thus, the scientific dialog and exchange could be pursued in personal discussions.  

The conference focused on the contributions of the participants to their research topics, which had to go through a reviewing process for participation. A publication of these articles will now be made in the research database IEEE Xplore.  

In total, the paper presentations were divided into five paper sessions. The different sessions covered the topics of "Power Converter and Electrical Machine Control Strategies," "Realtime Simulation, Testing and Protecting," "Power Electronics Topologies, Components and Behaviors," "Grid Operation and Control," and "Grid Planning." A total of 30 participants presented the results of their research.

In addition to the presentations by students and PhD students, there was a keynote by Prof. Dr. De Doncker of RWTH Aachen University on MVDC (Medium Voltage Direct Current) Grids, as well as a tour of SMA and a laboratory tour of the new Fraunhofer IEE facilities. 

The CIGRE Next Generation Network sponsored the welcome event and recognized the two best papers and the best presentation with an award. The awards went to: 

• "Best Paper Award" | Benedikt Hönle, Henrik Sommer, Peter Bretschneider, and Wolf-Michael Gnehr, "Deep neural networks for short-term multivariate solar power predictions from various meteorological forecast data"
• "Best Paper Award" | Carlo Liebermann, Lasse Gnärig, Robin Weiß, Andreas Hoffmann, Yinan Zhang, Ricardo Herrmann, Peter Schegner and Steffen Bernet, "Current Limiting of Virtual Synchronous Machines on Unbalanced Faults Considering Grid Protection"
• "Best Presentation Award" | Manuel Galler, "Evaluation and Test of Distance Protection in Cellular Energy Systems by Power Hardware in the Loop Method"