description
System level innovation and integration is required ensure a reliable, affordable and sustainable energy in the future. By doing so, investments in the electricity grid can be avoided. The aim of this project is to develop a system, consisting of storage (electricity and heat), electric heat pumps and PVT panels, combined with a novel energy management system to increase the flexibility within the energy system. This system will be tested in a pilot project with newly built houses in the former “weverij” in Almelo. Within this project, some devices are part of the household electricity circuit (e.g., the heat pump and heat storage), whereas other assets are shared within the community (e.g., the battery). Such a hybrid setup results in new possibilities from a technical perspective, new business cases, but also challenges from a governance viewpoint.
The goal is to research a system that controls energy flows in real-time to ensure that the local grid infrastructure is not overloaded and energy is kept locally within the community, i.e. as much as locally produced energy is used locally within the pilot site. From a technical perspective, this means that an energy management system must be developed that is able to simultaneously manage the energy flows of different energy carriers. This system needs to be modular, adaptable and replicated to ensure impact in the future.
From the social perspective, the system must be accepted by the people that will live in these houses, but simultaneously also help users in changing their energy behaviour to achieve the goals of the energy transition and decrease load on the energy system. Lastly, the possible economic models, business roles and contractual frameworks need to be developed to make such a concept a success. To this end, possibilities for governance of such a hybrid system, within the novel regulatory frameworks, are investigated. The project thereby aligns with the goals and possibilities that the EU’s Clean Energy Package is said to enable.
Involved partners next to the Decentral Energy Management research group:
- Faculty of Behavioural and Management Sciences (UT), Ter Steege Bouw (building company), Loohuis installatiegroep (installation of equipment), Coteq (local electricity grid operator), Contour (system integrator), and SolarFreezer (seasonal storage for heating systems).
A Dutch news article (March 2021) on this project from one of the partners, Ter Steege Bouw, is linked here.
Time period: 2020-2022