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Matching strategies
Subsequently, a so-called Powerpanel lead by Beatrix Bos discussed the ins and outs of the project. Thijs Meulen from ¹û¶³´«Ã½â€™s Real Estate department stood at the basis of the project. ‘As soon as we started translating the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ strategy into a strategic plan for real estate, we immediately noticed that the ambitions did not match with the power we were allowed to use from the public electricity grid. That is when we first predicted net congestion was going to occur on the campus network. And indeed, on 12 December 2022, our energy demand exceeded the terms of our contract with Enexis for the first time. When I talked about this with Mark Cox from EIRES, the plan for what would later become the GENIUS project was born.’

Lack of capacity
Else Veldman, Senior Energy Consultant Krachtwerk, commented on the nature of the net congestion problem: ‘The problems arose when the Netherlands choose the route of electrification. Companies want to expand their network connections, both for generation and use of energy. But at the moment, we do not have enough capacity. That is why network operators are focusing on expanding the grid. But that won’t solve all of the problems. Congestion management is the future. Today, we take the first steps in investigating what is needed to manage energy flows. And it is only logical to start on an isolated campus.’

Daan Pelders, Business Developer at FUDURA, the company that delivered the battery, emphasized the importance of delivering solutions to companies ‘behind the meter’. ‘Our clients indeed cannot expand their businesses any further, because of the lack of capacity on the electricity grid. The only way to work around this, is by managing their own energy usage. That is where we come in, delivering flexible assets they can use to shave off the peaks of both their energy use and the amount of energy they generate by for example solar panels.’

Car-like campus
Key to the system that is going to be tested at ¹û¶³´«Ã½, is the intelligent software developed by partner simpl.energy. Founder Tom Selten: ‘The idea for our software platform originates from our work in the solar team Eindhoven, and later in the company Lightyear. In a solar car, it makes sense that the solar panel, the battery and the charging station communicate with each other. Why not take this idea to the level of a campus? Net congestion is not a problem of capacity, it is a problem of traffic jam formation. We simply need to better manage the energy flows.’

Smart heating
Meulen and Selten gave an example of what they hope the GENIUS project will enable. Meulen: ‘Here at ¹û¶³´«Ã½, we have a unique aquifer thermal energy storage system, that consists of a separate hot and cold ring. That system has the capacity to heat and cool all of the buildings on campus, including the ones we are going to build in the future.’ Selten: ‘At the moment, the limiting factor is the fact that if we were to equip all buildings with heat pumps, they would consume too much electricity in the mornings when the buildings need to be heated up. One of the ideas we are going to explore within the GENIUS project, is to start preheating the buildings during the night, when the demand for electricity is low. That way we can avoid rush hour on the local electricity network, and use for example energy that was generated via solar panels the day before and that was temporarily stored in the battery.’

Broader impact
The GENIUS project explicitly aims to make an impact that goes beyond the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ campus. Veldman: ‘This project serves as a testing ground, not only for the technology, but also for how to set rules among multiple actors about who is going to use how much energy and when. This way, the project will serve as an example for other business parks that are more complicated than this university campus, which essentially shares one connection to the grid. One of the challenges thus will be to transfer the knowledge we gain here to others, so that they can take advantage of it. The best way to do this, is by inviting people to come here and see for themselves how such a system works in practice.’ Smits smiled at this invitation: ‘Anyone who has read the this morning will immediately be interested to come and visit us, I think. We’ll welcome them with open arms.’

After this enlightening conversation on stage, finally, the time had come for the unveiling of the battery. Martijn van Gruijthuijsen and Robert-Jan Smits quite literally plugged in the system. After this official moment, the attendees raised their glasses to a successful project, and got the chance to join a guided tour around the battery.