Profile

Lena Kitzing is Head of Section for Society, Markets & Policy in the DTU Wind Energy Systems Division, and Associate Professor in Energy Economics and Policy at DTU Wind & Energy Systems.

Her research spans across the energy-economy-society nexus and especially concerns the effective governance of energy systems through policy instruments, with particular focus on deployment and financing of renewables and their integration into the energy system. Her fields of expertise include energy policy instrument choice and mechanism design, auction design, financial analysis of energy assets with focus on investment and risk, stochastic cash flow modelling, portfolio analysis, dynamic energy transition processes.

Lena is a leading expert in the economics and policy for offshore wind energy with a number of highly published articles in the area. Lena is a lead contributor to the IEA TCP Wind Task 53 on Wind Energy Economics. She has participated in and coordinated many international research projects. She was acting project coordinator of the H2020 project AURES (Auctions for Renewable Energy Support), and has (amongst others) participated in AURESII, PROMOTiON, NSWPH (North Sea Wind Power Hub), NSEC (North Sea Energy Cooperation), ENSYMORA (energy systems modelling and analysis), ipower (Strategic platform for innovation and research in intelligent power), OPTIMATE (an optimisation platform to investigate new market designs for electricity systems with very high shares of renewables), as well as consultancy projects for the European Commission, the Danish Energy Agency, the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, and others.

Lena teaches at DTU in feasibility studies of energy projects, investment and financing analysis. She has taught courses at Bachelor, Master and PhD level at five different universities including subjects environmental economics and policy analysis, energy finance and risk management, regulation and integration of renewable energy. She acts as main supervisor of PhD students at DTU (three finished by 2022), and Master thesis projects at DTU (more than twenty finished by 2022), and has supervision cooperations with Imperial College, ETH Zürich, University of Flensburg.

Lena obtained her PhD degree in energy economics from DTU with the topic “Risk implications of energy policy instruments”. She has ample experience working in the energy industry, with energy companies RWE and Ørsted, where she was managing a team on investment controlling in Corporate Finance. Lena has been board member of the Joint Programme for wind energy of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), and serves on the board on several energy initiatives in Denmark.

Since March 2022, Lena is member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, with a mandate by the European Climate Law to advise European policymakers and stakeholders on climate and energy related decisions (Climate-advisory-board.europa.eu). 

Lena is a sought-after scientific advisor to public and private organisations, is regularly invited to key note speeches and conference panels, and appears in the Danish national media on energy related issues. 

Portrait about Lena Kitzing, professional career and research, by DTU Communications: link

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