Laboratory of Energy Policy - LEST

🎄 Happy holidays and successful new year 2026! 🎄

🎉 Wishing you a joyful holiday season, inspiring ideas, and a successful year ahead. ✨

Wrapping Up Our Japan Trip: teamLab Borderless, Tokyo 💫 🇯🇵

As the final event of our Japan trip, we visited teamLab Borderless, an innovative “museum without a map” where artworks drift between spaces, dissolve walls with light and sound, and quietly respond to your movement. 🌐

Wandering through rooms that connect into one living environment felt like stepping into a system where boundaries are suggestions, not limits, and that borderless flow mirrors our own beyond borders mindset. 🌏✨

✈️ ⛩️ From Tokyo → Osaka → Hiroshima → Kyoto → Shiga → Tokyo, we’re heading home with new collaborators, deeper understanding of Japan’s renewables and grid flexibility, and clear priorities for the next phase of our research.

Closing at Borderless felt like the right final note: a reminder to keep dissolving boundaries in how we think and build.

Fakulteta za elektrotehniko

A Major Stop on Our Japan Professional Trip: PEET 2025 Conference in Shiga

📍Over the past days, participated and presented two at the International Conference on Power Engineering and Electrical Technology (PEET) held October 22–24 at Ritsumeikan University in Shiga, Japan!

The conference brought together researchers and practitioners to discuss advances across power systems engineering, including smart grids, renewable integration, power electronics, and grid flexibility.

Our presentations:
🔹 Jernej Jozič — European bioenergy pathways for the green transition in the rural sector: demonstration activities and economic analysis of novel support schemes. 🌱📊

🔹 Janez Gregor Golja — Forecasting congestions and flexibility needs in the STREAM project: the sGRID tool for distribution grids. 🔌🧠 — Awarded Best Paper 🏆

Thank you to the organizers and everyone who joined our sessions. We’re now heading back to Tokyo with fresh ideas and new connections. 🚄 PEET 2025 conference was a major highlight of our professional trip in Japan.

Fakulteta za elektrotehniko

🏆 Best Paper Award in Japan!🎉⚡️

We’re thrilled (and still a bit amazed!) to receive the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Power Engineering and Electrical Technology (PEET) in Japan 🇯🇵!

Awarded paper:
“Forecasting Congestion and Flexibility Needs in the STREAM project: The sGRID Tool for Distribution Grids.”

Congratulations to Janez Gregor Golja and co-authors! 🎊🙌 The award recognizes impactful research on forecasting grid congestion and flexibility needs to support smarter, more resilient power systems.

Fakulteta za elektrotehniko, IEEE Power & Energy Society

visits the Naka Waste Incineration Plant in Hiroshima ♻️

Last week, we wrapped up a busy schedule with a visit to Hiroshima, where we toured the Naka Waste Incineration Plant, a striking facility located along the city’s southern seaside. ♻️🌊

Completed in 2004 at a cost of around 400 million USD, the plant is one of Japan’s most architecturally remarkable waste incineration facilities. It welcomes visitors into its core, offering interactive exhibits and digital tools that showcase how energy is efficiently recovered from waste. 🔥 The facility processes roughly 400 tons of waste per day.

While in Hiroshima, we also visited the Peace Memorial Museum, a deeply moving experience and an important moment of reflection.

We’re continuing our journey in Kyoto and Shingū to participate in the PEET Conference, where we’ll connect with leading researchers and explore further opportunities for collaboration. 🤝

Day in Hiroshima ⚡

This Thursday, we had the opportunity to tour the Liquefied Air Energy Storage (LAES) pilot facility in Hiroshima, Japan, owned by Sumitomo SHI FW. 🏭 Our visit came just in time to observe the final phase of testing and operational activities before the facility enters commercial operation in December.

💡 LAES is an innovative solution for large-scale, long-duration energy storage. It works by liquefying air, storing it in large tanks, and releasing it when needed to generate power. The system enhances efficiency by capturing and reusing both the heat from air compression and the cold from liquefaction during power generation.

This approach offers several key benefits:
⚡ High efficiency & long duration – ideal for balancing supply and demand during peak periods
🌱 Sustainability – a clean energy solution with low environmental impact
📈 Scalability – adaptable from local to national grid needs

LAES supports grid stability by providing ancillary services that balance supply and demand in real time crucial as renewable energy pe*******on increases. It also enables energy trading flexibility by quickly responding to market price signals.

🙏 A big thank you to Mr. Kristofer Matsuo for the detailed presentation and insightful facility visit!

Fakulteta za elektrotehniko

🌏 Visit to Osaka University | Yoshizawa Laboratory: Carbon Neutral Engineering ⚡🚗 🌱

We had the pleasure of visiting Osaka University, where we were kindly received by Associate Professor Shinya Yoshizawa and his team from the Carbon Neutral Engineering Laboratory.

The laboratory presented their latest research and findings on the electrification of transport, smart charging, and energy system integration key components of the global energy transition. 📑

We learned about studies on EV charging behaviour, infrastructure planning, and flexibility strategies that support Japan’s national goals: by 2035, all new passenger cars will be electric or hybrid, and by 2030, the country aims to deploy 300,000 charging ports.

These efforts reflect Japan’s strong commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

🙏 Many thanks to professors Yoshizawa, Sakai, and their teams for their kind hospitality and for sharing their innovative work on smart mobility and decarbonisation.

🔍 More detailed insights from our visit will follow soon on the LEST website.

🌏 Visit to Osaka Institute of Technology⚡

As part of our professional programme in , we visited the Department of Electrical and Electronic Systems Engineering at the Osaka Institute of Technology today.

We were warmly welcomed by Assistant Professor Hidehito Matayoshi, who introduced the work of his laboratory focused on microgrids, wind generation, smart grids, and distributed generation.

We had the chance to tour the lab and see several fascinating experimental setups, including a high-frequency transformer, a vertical-axis wind turbine, and a magnetic levitation linear motor. ⚙️💡

Our discussion also touched on Japan’s current approach to renewable integration, where solar is the main energy source but overall pe*******on remains around 10%, and adoption of rooftop PV and electric vehicles is still limited compared to Europe. ☀️ 🔋

🙏 A big thank you to Assistant Professor Matayoshi for his hospitality and for sharing valuable insights into Japan’s evolving energy landscape!

Fakulteta za elektrotehniko

🌏 LEST team in Japan – from Tokyo to Osaka for the final day of 🇯🇵✨

After an insightful start of our visit in Tokyo, we continued our journey by high-speed train to Osaka, where we explored the EXPO 2025 site on its final day. 🚄🎌

We were delighted to visit the , showcasing the country’s innovation, creativity, and sustainability, and to discover many other inspiring international exhibits focused on clean energy, digital transformation, and global cooperation. ⚡🌿🤝

The EXPO visit marked another memorable step in our professional programme across Japan! 🇸🇮

🇸🇮🇯🇵 LEST professional excursion in Japan - first stop: the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Tokyo! ✈️🌏

We were warmly welcomed by our hosts 🤝 and had discussions on the relationship between Japan and Europe, especially Slovenia, and on the green transition from electric vehicles 🚗⚡ to hydrogen 💧 and sustainable development 🌱.

We also reflected on Japanese culture 🇯🇵 and the importance of careful, long-term planning in policymaking and cooperation 🗺️📈.

This visit marked the first activity of our program in Japan, with many inspiring meetings ahead! 🙌✨

Fakulteta za elektrotehniko

💡 How will AI-driven data centers reshape the future of the grid?

Join us on Tuesday (September 23rd) at 13:00 at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, where Dr. Edvina Uzunovic will address this critical question.

Her lecture will explore the growing energy demand of AI, grid impacts, and the role of IEEE PES in guiding this transition.

📍 Room P6
🕐 13:00
👉 https://lest.fe.uni-lj.si/news/invited-lecture-ai-data-centers-and-their-impact-on-the-electrical-grid-by-dr-edvina-uzunovic/

Dr. Edvina Uzunovic is the Associate Director of Power Systems Engineering and an Assistant Teaching Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). With over 25 years of industry and academic experience, she has led and contributed to numerous innovations in power system.

IEEE Power & Energy Society, Fakulteta za elektrotehniko, Laboratory of Energy Policy - LEST