Tackling grid congestion: how Limburg entrepreneurs built a complete energy hub together

Energy hubs at business parks are often mentioned as a promising solution in the fight against grid congestion. A group of Limburg entrepreneurs from Pannenweg business park in Nederweert put their money where their mouth is.

It's been a magic word in the fight against grid congestion for a while now: local energy hubs of companies exchanging electricity among themselves in order to reduce the demand on the grid. Practice turns out to be weatherier than fancy ideas on paper, but something special is happening at the Pannenweg II business park in the Limburg municipality of Nederweert.

Wednesday, Energie HandelsPlatform Pannenweg (EHP-P), a limited liability company in which business park entrepreneurs cooperate in the field of energy, signed the first so-called group transmission agreement with regional grid operator Enexis.

Major consumers at the park hereby waive their individual agreements with Enexis and exchange them for a joint agreement for the contracted power. The idea is that this collective agreement will be more favorable on balance through smart mutual coordination of peak usage.

The group agreement is the culmination of three years of pioneering, during which the Limburg entrepreneurs had to overcome quite a few obstacles. Setting up a decentralized energy hub turned out to be much more difficult than initially thought.

During the event De Top van Onderop, manager Wim Schilders of Energie Handelsplatform Pannenweg, account manager Joop de Boer of energy supplier OM Nieuwe Energie and strategic relationship manager Antonie de Haas of grid manager Enexis explained what the challenges were and how they finally got out.