REVOLT - Smart management of energy consumption based on renewable energy market and prices
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About this good practice
Europe and Flanders are now more committed than ever to climate and energy objectives. Local authorities commit themselves to do their part through the mayoral covenant. Companies appear to be a difficult target group to involve in this story. Various measures have already been taken to encourage them to invest more in renewable energy, but much potential remains untapped. Companies do not have sufficient insight into their daily consumption and the savings these investments can bring them.
The city of Roeselare and WVI want to promote energy efficiency in companies and increase the share of renewable energy to support achieving the city's climate and energy goals. The aim is to provide business parcs with insight into their energy production and consumption by setting up an energy platform with real-time data. The real-time view offers a company the opportunity to monitor its energy production, energy prices and consumption and allows to adjust it automatically via smart control of assets. In this way, a company can make optimal use of locally generated energy and/or invest (further) in solar panels. In a second step, the platform can give at an overarching level insight into the possibility to share energy between companies.
To realize the ambition of the platform, the software partner Lovitas was selected. Within the project the local business parcs Krommebeekpark and Onledebeek were selected to run the pilot. The first pilot projects have been started at 12 companies.
Resources needed
Total budget = 857.678,45€, of which 686.178,45€ is subsidized by the Flemish innovation and entrepreneurship agency, call City of Things 2022 (VLAIO, www.vlaio.be).
The budget covers staff costs and use of the EMS platform (including installation of meters) for a period of 2,5 years.
Evidence of success
12 companies joined the project to run the pilot at their site.
In the future we will have insights into the change of energy production and consumption as a result of the platform application.
Potential for learning or transfer
Cities and municipalities that signed the Covenant of Mayors have formulated concrete climate and energy objectives to achieve by 2030 or 2050. The industrial estate is often not included in these actions because the city or municipality has little control over this target group. However, industrial estates are the ideal location to take actions to achieve climate objectives by reducing their energy consumption and shifting to local generation of renewable energy. But the challenge is to get them on board. A company is only prepared to make large investments if this proves profitable. By using an EMS platform, companies gain insight into their consumption, energy prices and production and can be convinced that investments in solar panels and smart control of their assets could be profitable.
Transfer possibilities: procedure of selecting a platform, approach to engage companies in the project.
Future: insights in change of energy production and use following platform application.