Story was part of the event: sharing energy, smart grids and blockchain

About 90 people attended the event to listen to different presentations providing insight in the obstacles and potentials of sharing energy through co-investments. Cogen is the sector organization for cogeneration in Flanders and has since long lobbied to overcome the hurdles with regards to the distribution of energy in multi-family buildings equipped with a common combined heat and power (CHP) system. The 3rd Energy Package provides the end consumer with the absolute right to chose the electricity supplier and the owner of the CHP system is generally not a registered supplier. Similar challenges surface when introducing models such as “zonnedelen”, i.e. co-investing in solar energy installed on a different roof than that of the investor.
Moving from different geographically distributed projects to a geographically cantered community, these unfavourable regimes hinder attractive or even feasible investment models. Different stakeholders presented their view: Alliander (DSO in the Netherlands) detailed their view on Blockchain as a means to facilitate the local exchanges and the linked remunerations, EANDIS is Belgian DSO explained the point of view of a distribution system operator with regards to upcoming challenges of amongst others more distributed generation and increased loads due to heat pumps, electrical vehicles, … Prof Bram Delvaux of the university of Leuven explained the legal aspects with some insights in the vague notes of the concept of Local Energy Communities (LEC) in the 4th Energy Package (Clean Energy for all Europeans) which holds the potential for regulators to still prevent effective active contribution of LEC to maintaining grid investments realistic while improving power quality where needed and enabling a further increase of (local) renewables. Our STORY demonstration of the Living Lab was presented with insights in the first results and the attendees visited the Living Lab.
Reflections and reactions afterwards were very positive and encourages us to move on and increase the innovation level to the street as a LEC.