Challenge
The challenge has been twofold. The first challenge was to make everything come together: making all the various sources of measurement and controllable actuators integrate into a single system that is understandable, easy to work with for the users, and prepared for added functionalities in the future. The second challenge lies in the robustness: ensuring the IT infrastructure between the physical station in Scheveningen and the Spectral cloud platform has a high up-time and detects and handles faults with minimal impact.
Approach
This is a joint project between STELLAR and Grid Edge Consulting. Spectral supported Alfen in its sub-station design, to ensure the required connectivity and measurement and control capabilities are available in the station. While Alfen brought the know-how to design and build a robust sub-station, the knowledge and experience of Spectral in the IT and Internet of Things domain ensured the selected hardware is fully ready for digital integration into the cloud. Spectral’s microgrid controller was deployed to locally integrate with all devices within the microgrid. This integrates seamlessly with Spectral’s Smart Energy Systems, which was configured to meet the wishes and requirements of this specific application and serves as the IT backbone to storing data, visualizing the energy flows, facilitating billing services, and making this project work.
Outcome
Making a standard sub-station smart in order to facilitate experimentation in a local micro-grid has just been the first step and is part of a bigger vision. The current project outcome is that the Scheveningen beach area is now ready for experimentation with different approaches to local sustainable energy generation and consumption in the form of energy trading, storage, and demand-side management. The end goal is to have the micro-grid be fully self-sustaining. When this is achieved, the Scheveningen Living Lab micro-grid will serve as proof and a real-world example of how the built environment can be made more sustainable.
The end goal will see the Scheveningen harbor area only use locally generated renewable energy. This will not only save CO2 emissions but also avoid future grid capacity increases (which are expensive and take a long time to realize). Furthermore, it is expected the participants in the microgrid will save on their energy bill as they will use their own, locally generated renewable energy from the micro-grid. Because we are planning for the energy used to be produced locally, participants will have to rely less on the national grid. This means there will be increased uptime, and energy delivery even in the event of power outages. In the near future, the visitors of the Scheveningen Boulevard will be informed about this innovative energy system and its positive impact through a billboard-style dashboard.
