If the electricity grid is at full capacity, the solution starts with the neighbour

The energy transition doesn’t just begin with major national plans or new cables being laid underground. It starts much closer to home: on industrial estates, amongst entrepreneurs who want to grow, become more sustainable and look to the future.

At the Smakterheide business park in Venray, this challenge is becoming increasingly pressing. Businesses want to expand, install solar panels, make their production processes more sustainable or invest in electric transport. At the same time, business owners are finding that additional electricity is not automatically available. The electricity grid is becoming increasingly congested, and this has a direct impact on local growth and future plans. That is why research is being carried out at Smakterheide into how businesses can collaborate more effectively on energy matters. Not as an abstract policy issue, but as a problem that is already affecting businesses today.

From grid congestion to local cooperation

At the Smakterheide business park, more and more businesses are coming up against the hard limits of the electricity grid. Although some of the 160 companies currently still have sufficient capacity, grid congestion is a major bottleneck for those planning to expand, install solar panels or switch to electric freight transport. Obtaining additional electricity or feeding generated energy back into the grid is simply no longer a given.

In order to become more sustainable and continue to grow, the businesses are joining forces with the launch of a local Energy Hub. Instead of getting bogged down individually behind their own meter boxes, the businesses are now looking at the collective energy needs of the entire business park. By generating, storing and using electricity more intelligently at a local level, and sharing it amongst themselves, they are collectively creating the space needed for the future.

What’s happening at Smakterheide at the moment?

The first phase of the Energy Hub is all about insight. Before businesses make major investments in, for example, batteries or charging stations, their collective energy consumption must first be mapped out in minute detail. Companies therefore share their data with an independent technical consultancy to identify exactly when power peaks occur and which business processes place the heaviest load on the system.

These consumption analyses make the entire process immediately practically applicable. After all, the first major gains rarely come from expensive, new technology, but rather from optimising day-to-day operations more intelligently. Think of a heavy machine starting up at a different time, electric lorries charging outside peak hours, or neighbouring businesses seamlessly complementing each other’s energy needs. By better understanding when energy is required, existing capacity can be utilised much more efficiently straight away.

The problems behind the meter cupboard

For business owners, energy often only becomes an issue when plans hit a snag. As long as the connection is sufficient, there seems to be little cause for concern. But as soon as a business wants to grow or become more sustainable, it becomes clear just how dependent its future development is on available grid capacity.

That’s what makes the challenge so exciting. Entrepreneurs want to move forward, but they need certainty. A company wishing to invest in electric transport needs to know whether charging is possible. A company wishing to expand production needs to know whether additional capacity will become available. A company wishing to install solar panels needs to know whether the energy generated can be put to good use.

When that certainty is lacking, temporary solutions emerge. Think of private batteries, generators or individual investments that help in the short term, but may not be the best solution for the entire business park.

That is why the joint exploratory project at Smakterheide is of interest. Rather than each company investing individually, the first step is to identify where collective solutions can offer greater value.

Working together requires trust

An Energy Hub is, above all, a matter of collaboration. During the analysis phase, this is still relatively straightforward. Companies share data with an independent third party, enabling insights to be gained without the need to share competitively sensitive information amongst themselves. But as the collaboration progresses, the challenges become greater.

Who invests in what? How are costs shared? What happens if a business relocates or is sold? How do you organise the settlement of energy costs? What arrangements are needed when businesses share a battery, energy management system or charging facility? Or, to put it more simply: how do you organise collaboration in such a way that it remains fair, workable and future-proof?

That is a key part of the current phase. After all, an Energy Hub can only work if the technology is right, but also if businesses have confidence in the underlying agreements.

From analysis to business case

Smakterheide is currently at a stage where the consumption analysis is being linked to possible scenarios. Which groups of companies could work well together? Where is the greatest synergy? Which solutions are suitable for this? And what is needed to actually make this collaboration a reality?

The next question is whether a viable business case can be made. That is essential. Grants can help to facilitate research, process support and preparation, but ultimately the actual investments must make sense to the entrepreneurs themselves.

An Energy Hub only becomes attractive once businesses realise that it offers them long-term benefits. For example, greater certainty regarding growth, lower peak demand, better use of locally generated energy, or the opportunity to take steps towards electrification at an earlier stage.

That is where the complexity lies. The energy market is changing rapidly. During the day, electricity can be cheap when the sun is shining, whilst at other times the price can rise sharply. This makes developing a business case complicated, but also essential.

Why this is of interest to entrepreneurs

For other business parks, Smakterheide serves as an indispensable case study: everywhere, demand for electricity is rising due to sustainability measures, electric transport and solar energy, whilst grid capacity is stretched to the limit. The key lesson is not to wait until you hit a bottleneck on your own, but to join forces at an early stage. By no longer focusing solely on your own meter box, but working with your neighbours to analyse when peak demand occurs and how processes interconnect, you can collectively create new scope for growth. This calls for a fundamental shift in thinking: from ‘how much electricity do I need?’ to ‘how can we manage the available capacity more intelligently together?’

Our ambition for the future

The aim at Smakterheide is clear: to generate more energy locally, use more of it locally, and manage the available energy more efficiently.

Ideally, this will result in a business park where entrepreneurs have greater certainty about their growth plans, where renewable energy is utilised more effectively, and where the strain on the electricity grid is reduced. A park where businesses do not just focus on their own connections, but work together to create a future-proof energy supply.

The future of electric transport is also being considered. As lorries become increasingly electric, this will require charging solutions that are suited to the scale of the business park. The question is therefore not only where a charging hub should be located, but also how it will be powered, which businesses will use it, and how this fits within the area’s overall energy management.