Denis Mende Group lead Fraunhofer IEE

Denis Mende studied electrical power engineering at the University of Kassel in a dual study scheme with SMA Solar Technology AG. From 2011 on, he worked there as a systems engineer for grid integration. He joined Fraunhofer IEE in 2015 and completed his PhD in the field of mathematical optimization of operational congestion management at Leibniz Universität Hannover. Since 2021, he leads the research group “Methods for Optimized Grid Operation” in joint cooperation with the University of Kassel. His research focuses on innovative operation of energy grids with a high share of renewable generation.

Javier Silva Ortiz Chief Technology Officer EcoPlanet

Javier Silva is the CTO at EcoPlanet Green Operations GmbH, a leading German startup specializing in consumer-side Energy Management and Procurement for SMEs. Leading the engineering organization, its interface with product development, and focusing on creating innovations deeply rooted in Mathematics and Computer Science. Father of Ember AI, EcoPlanet's groundbreaking AI in Europe. A technologist by heart with 15 years of experience in IT. Previously, as Chief Architect Officer at Aleph Engineering GmbH, he directed high-profile client teams, led reorganizations, and drove technological innovation. As CTO for Vulcane Creative GmbH, he successfully led the digital transformation of companies in niche markets in the DACH zone. Before Germany, he worked in Cuba for special branches of the Government in several technology complexes with R&D focus in Distributed Systems, Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, and IoT. And later as Director of Engineering dealing mostly with AI subfields, Electronics, Information and Signal Theory, all together having an impact across Aerospace, Telecommunications, Security, Healthcare, and Computing Infrastructure. His hobbies are flight simulation and playing the guitar; his passion is spending time with his little son.

Andres Peluso Technical Sales Specialist encoord

Andres attended the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He worked in Canada on projects and operations in the oil and gas and manufacturing industries, which led him to the energy sector and pursuing two master’s degrees in Energy Engineering and Management and Energy Innovation. With encoord, Andres was originally part of the energy system modeler team improving our customer experience by providing consulting services and training and helping to improve SAInt by testing the software and developing new energy network models. He has transitioned to the sales team, providing his technical knowledge and experience to understand our customers' needs and how they can leverage SAInt to solve their energy planning challenges.

Franz Almhofer-Amering Managing Partner ABD

Franz Almhofer-Amering has a diverse educational background. He studied Law and Economics for Technicians at JKU Linz. Prior to that, he specialized in eco-energy technology at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria and is also a Mechatronic engineer. In terms of his career, Franz has held roles like as IT Manager of Innotech GmbH or the Environment-, Energy- and Safety Manager at TRUMPF Maschinen Austria. Afterwards he was Corporate EHS & Maintenance Manager and in parallel acting as the IT Product Owner for EHS, Maintenance and Quality at Miba Group for several years. Since 2022, he serves as the Managing Director at ABD GmbH, overseeing business consulting, and project implementation with a broad range of customers. The focus is on data management for energy generation and infrastructure, industry and big retail companies.

Martha Frysztacki Head of Energy System Modelling Open Energy Transition

Martha holds an M.Sc. in Mathematics from FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and a PhD from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Her journey with PyPSA, the renowned open-source energy planning optimization framework, began in 2019 as she started her PhD studies and joined the core development team. Her focus was on achieving an accurate representation of the electricity grid and ensuring its secure operation today and in a future, more renewable, system. After graduating in 2023, she co-founded Open Energy Transition (OET), a non-profit environmental think tank and software company dedicated to addressing energy planning challenges. At OET, Martha takes the lead in Energy System Modeling and Optimization.

Eric Tönges Researcher Uni Kassel

Eric Toenges studied industrial engineering, focusing on electrical engineering and power systems at the University of Kassel. Since 2022, he has been working as a researcher at the Department of Energy Management and Power System Operation at the University of Kassel, which cooperates closely with Fraunhofer IEE. His PhD research focuses on assessing and improving the resilience of cyber-physical energy systems using single- and multi-level optimization.

Florian Kühnlenz Team Lead Data Science Energy2market

With a background in physics from TU Ilmenau and a PhD from Oulu University, I bring a strong foundation in quantitative analysis and computational modeling to my role at e2m. As lead of the Data Science Team, I specialize in utilizing machine learning techniques, to drive algorithmic trading as well as asset optimization, founded on a strong software engineering base. Our focus extends beyond traditional trading as we're also spearheading the integration of microgrid optimization in our portfolio. This involves leveraging Gurobi to optimize complex asset groups behind the meter, paving the way for more efficient and sustainable energy production and delivering flexibility to reserve and short term markets.

Dominik Funken Senior Product Owner Kisters

Since 2020 Mr. Funken, as Product Owner for BelVis ResOpt, has been responsible for all development issues and customer requirements for the optimization tool BelVis ResOpt at KISTERS AG. From 2015 to 2020 he was responsible for the consulting and model development of the optimization projects at KISTERS AG. He is a specialist for virtual power plants and district heating optimization and gained a lot of experience with business process modelling. From 2009 to 2015 Mr. Funken studied mechanical engineering (B.Sc.) and energy techniques (M.Sc.), both at RWTH Aachen University. As part of his studies he focused on mathematical optimization and energy data management for energy supply systems.

Maximilian Sporleder Research Associate Fraunhofer IEG

Maximilian Sporleder studied energy and raw materials at the Clausthal University of Technology, graduating in 2016, followed by an internship at Daimler AG at the Ulm Research Center in the field of oil measurement technology. He then pursued his Master's degree in energy science and engineering at the TU Darmstadt with a stay abroad at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, focusing on machine learning. He completed his Master's thesis in the field of mathematical optimization for the integration of heat pumps in thermohydraulic system networks, completed in 2020. At Fraunhofer IEG, Maximilian writes his Ph.D. in the design optimization of district heating systems and has seven publications in this field. Maximilian Sporleder developed a Python package, supporting district heating network operators in the transition of their heat supply.

Martin Sollich PhD Candidate KU Leuven

Passionate and curious PhD Candidate at KU Leuven, specializing in the design of district heating networks using waste heat and renewable sources for carbon-free heating. He uses mathematical optimization and physics-based modelling to derive optimal network designs. He's Committed to sustainable energy systems and driving positive change.

Stefan Kirschbaum Head of Department MOE Top-Energy

Stefan Kirschbaum studied physics at Aachen University in Germany until Mai 2004. 2001 until 2003 Stefan developed the renewable energy simulation tool SimREN at iSUSI GmbH. After that he did his PhD in the field of “Simulation of Industrial Production Processes with regards to energy consumption” at the Chair of Technical Thermodynamics of Aachen University. Since 2008 Stefan Kirschbaum is working for the Society for the Advancement of Applied Computer Science e.V. (GFaI e.V.) in Berlin, Germany. He’s responsible for research projects in the field of energy efficiency and development of simulation and optimization software. The software product TOP-Energy by the Society for the Advancement of Applied Computer Science is used by major energy companies to optimize energy systems of industrial power plants, commercial buildings and communal district heating grids. Since 2021 Stefan Kirschbaum is head of the department "modelling and optimization of energy systems" (MOE) at GFaI and product manager of TOP-Energy.