NGN Norway and the NGN Event at Trondheim Symposium May 2025

The Norwegian NGN Board from the left: Katharina Kuhlefelt Eie-Klusmeier, Hege Bruvik Kvandal, Jon Eide Langørgen, Maren Refsnes Brubæk and Aurora Opstad.

Last year, in the summer of 2024, the new NGN Norway Board met for the first time at the Paris Session. There has been an NGN board in Norway for a long time, but after a period of low activity, CIGRE Norway decided to initiate a new board. We were fortunate to kick-off our introduction to CIGRE at the 2024 Paris Session. We were truly in awe when walking into the Palais des Congrès for the first time, seeing the size of the location and the enormous number of enthusiastic colleagues from all over the world. One of the most important takeaways from the session was experiences and relationships with many young professionals from other NGN groups in CIGRE. Hearing about the work of other NGN groups really helped us to get going. It also made us realize that we are very fortunate to have a great deal of support from the national CIGRE board in Norway.

 

After the Paris Session, we began planning the events we wanted to organize in our first

year as the NGN Norway Board. Since we hadn’t had much familiarity with CIGRE before spring/summer 2024, we assumed that many of our young colleagues in the industry also weren’t very familiar with CIGRE. Therefore, we wanted our first event to be memorable, social and help showcase what CIGRE has to offer to as many people as possible. In February 2025, we held a Kick-off event with the theme “Barriers of Offshore Wind” with around 50 participants. The event was fully booked early on, with a substantial waiting list. Seeing that so many people were interested in our event made it feel very rewarding and made us eager to plan more events. The event started with a professional segment where we presented CIGRE, followed by five young professionals who gave talks about the challenges their companies face in the development of offshore wind. The presentations reflected perspectives of different parts of the offshore wind industry. We got to hear the barriers faced by Statnett (TSO), RME (the regulatory authority), SINTEF (research), Aker Solutions (developer) and Örsted (developer, constructor and operator). The presenters got a lot of interest and questions from the audience, so we really felt this topic is very relevant in our industry. After the presentations, we moved on to an Arcade bar, where dinner was served and there were opportunities for darts, golf simulator, and shuffleboard. It turned out to be a very successful evening, both professionally and socially.

 

Opening words from Conor Mulholland, Chair of NGN International Executive Committee.

In parallel with planning and hosting the kick-off, we were also working on organizing an NGN event during the Trondheim Symposium in May 2025. The fact that a symposium happened to be held in Trondheim during our first year in CIGRE was incredibly lucky. This gave us the opportunity to host a large and international NGN event already as our second event. The Trondheim Symposium was held from May 12–15, 2025, with the NGN event taking place on May 13. 

The event had approximately 40 attendees from 15 different countries. Once again, we wanted to focus on both professional content and networking, as we imagined many young people had traveled to Trondheim alone. So, we planned the event to take place before the Symposium’s gala, allowing more young participants to connect and perhaps attend the gala together. And who knows, maybe some plan to meet up in Paris as well?

 

The NGN event started in a separate room, with a presentation from the Chair of NGN International Executive Committee, Conor Mulholland. Conor gave the NGN participants an introduction to the NGN International Committee and their mandate. He also gave an update on their current work. Conor also talked about his experiences within CIGRE, all the way up to the Chair position in the NGN International Committee.

 

Following Conor, we had four NGN members from around the world presenting their journey with CIGRE and their interesting work. We got to hear a more technical presentation from Prem Ranjan about his work as a Senior Innovation Engineer from National Grid. Prem has worked with research on SF₆ substitutes and other innovations important for reaching net-zero. He has also been involved with working groups within CIGRE. The second presentation was from Gen Li, professor at North China Electric Power University. Gen Li is a member of the B5 Technical Panel and several working groups and has been part of the Danish NGN group. Maria Bipop Bang Jensen, Specialist in Electrical Engineering at Statkraft held the next presentation. Maria is a member of working group A2.68 which studies GSU transformer failures. The last presentation was held by Gitanjali Bhattacharjee, Ph.D. from Exponent. Gitanjali is a member of the joint working group C3/B4.24. She recalled that CIGRE welcomes all backgrounds, not only power system engineers. It was truly inspiring to see how much great scientific work has been done already by such young talents. Some of the presenters also shared their experiences from participating in CIGRE study committees and working groups. We hope this inspired other young professionals to reach out and partake in new CIGRE initiatives, continuing their CIGRE journey.

 

Panel discussion at the NGN event in Trondheim. From the left: Gitanjali Bhattacharjee Ph.D, Prem Ranjan, Maria Bipop Bang Jensen, Gen Li and Conor Mulholland.

After the presentations, all the presenters gathered on stage for a panel discussion. Our own Jon hosted the panel discussion and opened for questions from the audience. The presenters got questions both regarding their scientific work but also about their careers and experiences as young professionals. We hope to meet both the presenters and all the participants again in the Paris Session 26 and look forward to learning more about the interesting work of young CIGRE members. The last hour of the event we had invited all the participants to a shared lunch. The lunch made room for more networking among the NGNs in Trondheim and hopefully lead to more familiar faces at the next international CIGRE event.

 

Group photo of the attendees at the NGN Event during the Trondheim Symposium.

We wish to, again, thank all the presenters and particpants for attending. We also want to express our gratitude for the continuous support of the CIGRE Norway Board. As for us in the Norwegian NGN Board we look forward to hosting new activites for young professionals both in Norway and at the coming Paris Session. We encourage other NGN groups to reach out with wishes for collaborating on international digital or physical events in the future.