May 17 2018  Energy Now: storage and conversion

Energy Now 2018 a short report:

The host of the day Arash Aazami and the chairman Lieke van Essen (Team Energy) opened the first session and introduced the first keynote speaker Richard van de Sanden director of DIFFER.

Keynote Richard van de Sanden (Differ)

The institute DIFFER is specialized in energy related research. DIFFER stands for Dutch Institute For Fundamental Energy Research. Emphasis is on Fusion Energy and Solar Fuels. In his keynote Richard described the status of worldwide CO2 emissions in relation to the Paris agreement of 2015. A lot needs to be done to go to a CO2 neutral energy system in 2050. Renewable energy sources like PV and wind will be intermittent. Therefore, storage of energy is important. To storage energy properly conversion into other types of energy is important.

Bild 1: Richard van de Sanden on Solar Fuels.
He described a method to reuse CO2 as a base for solar fuels. Dissociation of CO2 to CO is achieved by plasma technologies.

Settalk Andreas Plenk (Alfen)

The Alfen company provides storage facilities for all kind of applications. One of their containers with 500 kWh storage with control was on show. Andeas gave an inspirational talk on the options his company provides. In his opinion energy will be available for a fixed fee in the future. Like nowadays internet and mobile phone. Storage will be available on a district level and can be combined to virtual power plants.

Breakout sessions

Topics in the built environment, Industry, Transport and Mobility and Energy Production and Infrastructure were covered in the 14 breakout sessions.

TenneT session

In this session the capacity and stability of the 50Hz network were discussed. The question to the workshop participants was how to maintain the system balance in the future by using a flexibility market.

Innoenergy session

Often home owner want to improve the energy performance of their home/flat/neighborhood. In this workshop the groups were asked to come up with proposals for three cases based on the budget available and the requirements. For the game solutions options were given with their cost and consequences.

Panel session

The third Energy Now symposium was concluded by a panels session on the Dutch Climate Agreement. Questions like what the goals are and how can they be reached were discussed. What about heat nets, geothermal heat and aviation? The public agreed with a large majority that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is not a real option.