On 18 October 2018, key stakeholders in the European decentralised renewable energy sector gathered to visit the waste water treatment installation on Texel Island, in North-Holland. The purpose of the site visit was to learn and to discuss experiences of the Low Carbon Off-Grid Communities (LOGiC) project and other decentralised renewable energy projects in Europe.
The waste water treatment installation is one out of three LOGiC pilot projects. It aims to match supply and demand in balance for a decentralised renewable energy hybrid system (DHES) as well as to distribute the generated energy on the existing network of the island.
Three low-carbon technologies are combined in the project: energy storage by storage in water level (equivalent power to be determined in the project), small scale battery storage for peak shaving (budgeted at max 100 kW) and PV energy.
The solar panels will be placed at the waste water treatment plant. The energy distributed to the local water installations by the grid authority Liander. The total project cost is EUR 3 million of which EUR 360,000 comes from Interreg North-West Europe via the Low Carbon Off-grid Communities (LOGiC) project.
Klaas-Jan de Hart, Manager – Assetmanagement, Hoogheemraadschap, Hollands Noorderkwartier (HHNK): “We are very happy to showcase the Texel Island project and hope that this renewable energy installation can be a role model for other similar installations across North-West Europe. We plan that up to 100% of the current energy demand will come from renewable energy (1.280.000 kWh annual). Energy not used for water management will be made available to meet other demand on Texel Island, thus benefiting the local community on the island.”
Going hand-in-hand with the launch of the Texel pilot project, the Lead Partner of LOGiC Noord-Holland Noord (NHN), is now launching the ‘Community of Practice’ (CoP). The CoP is an interactive website, which aims to collect feedback from all stakeholders and share best practices on decentralised renewable hybrid energy systems (DHES). All interested stakeholders are encouraged to join the CoP.
LOGiC fits well into a broader ambition in North-West Europe to shift towards a low carbon economy in all sectors and the overall EU Energy Roadmap 2050, which concludes that ‘…a new configuration of decentralised and centralised large-scale systems needs to emerge.’ This is why the project has received support from Interreg NWE with 60 percent of the project’s EUR 4,2 million budget being funded through the European Regional Development Fund.
- To join the Community of Practice, contact Bjorn Borgers: bborgers@nhn.nl
- For further information about LOGiC, contact Daniel Banis: dbanis@nhn.nl
- For media inquiries, please contact Jens Jaeger: j.jaeger@ruralelec.org
