The community renewable energy is often seen as the way to address the societal challenge of energy transition. Many scholars foresee a key role for community energy in accelerating of the energy transition from fossil to renewable energy sources. For example, some authors investigated the transformative role of community renewable energy in the energy transition process (Seyfang and Smith, 2007; Seyfang and Haxeltine 2012; Seyfang et al. 2013; Seyfang et al. 2014; Smith et al. 2017; Martiskainen, 2017; Ruggiero et al. 2018; Hasanov and Zuidema, 2018; de Boer et al. 2018). Recognising the importance of community energy many scholars studied different internal and external conditions that contribute or hinder the success of local renewable energy initiatives (Walker et al. 2007; Bomberg and McEwen, 2012; Seyfang et al. 2013; Wirth, 2014; Hasanov and Zuidema, 2018; Ruggiero et al. 2018). One of such conditions contributing to the success of community energy initiatives is the capacity to adopt and utilize new technologies, for example, in the area of energy storage, which would increase flexibility and resilience of the communal energy supply systems.However, as noted by Ruggiero et al. (2018), the scholarship remains unclear on “how a very diverse and relatively small sector such as community energy could scale up and promote a change in the dominant way of energy production”. What is then the real transformative power of local renewable energy initiatives and whether community energy can offer an alternative to the existing energy system? This paper aims to answer these questions by confronting the critical review of theory with the recent practice of community energy in the Netherlands to build and scale up independent and self-sustaining renewable energy supply structures on the local and national scale and drafting perspectives on the possible role of community energy in the new energy system.
The SynergyS project aims to develop and assess a smart control system for multi-commodity energy systems (SMCES). The consortium, including a broad range of partners from different sectors, believes a SMCES is better able to incorporate new energy sources in the energy system. The partners are Hanze, TU Delft, University of Groningen, TNO, D4, Groningen Seaports, Emerson, Gain Automation Technology, Energy21, and Enshore. The project is supported by a Energy Innovation NL (topsector energie) subsidy by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.Groningen Seaports (Eemshaven, Chemical Park Delfzijl) and Leeuwarden are used as case studies for respectively an industrial and residential cluster. Using a market-based approach new local energy markets have been developed complementing the existing national wholesale markets. Agents exchange energy using optimized bidding strategies, resulting in better utilization of the assets in their portfolio. Using a combination of digital twins and physical assets from two field labs (ENTRANCE, The Green Village) performance of the SMCES is assessed. In this talk the smart multi-commodity energy system is presented, as well as some first results of the assessment. Finally an outlook is given how the market-based approach can benefit the development of energy hubs.
LINK
Resilience to adverse events is increasingly recognized as important for human health. Socio-economic status (SES) is also frequently identified as a predictor of resilience. However, it is not well-understood how people define resilience in their everyday lives, and whether individuals have different experiences of resilience based on their SES. This study sought to fill these gaps, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and pandemic mitigation policies in the Netherlands.We interviewed high (n = 38) and low (n = 37) SES participants about their understanding and experiences of resilience during this period. Participants took part in individual interviews and focus groups in September 2021. Transcripts were analyzed thematically.A key theme was coping with adversity, in line with commonly-used definitions of resilience. However, we found that resilience was often defined more broadly. Resilience also encompassed aspects of self-reflection and improvement, and faith in oneself, the community and the nation. There were also key differences by SES background: elaborate and optimistic definitions and experiences of resilience were more often described by high SES individuals. For instance, high SES participants more frequently defined resilience as growing and improving. In contrast, low SES participants more commonly experienced resilience as enduring until better times arrived.Having a higher SES seemed to support resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. This indicates that adverse events may exacerbate pre-existing financial and material difficulties among low SES individuals. This finding underscores the importance of addressing financial precarity prior to adverse events.
MULTIFILE
The COVID19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability in supply chain networks in the healthcare sector and the tremendous waste problem of disposable healthcare products, such as isolation gowns. Single-use disposable isolation gowns cause great ecological impact. Reusable gowns can potentially reduce climate impacts and improve the resilience of healthcare systems by ensuring a steady supply in times of high demand. However, scaling reusable, circular isolation gowns in healthcare organizations is not straightforward. It is impeded by economic barriers – such as servicing costs for each use – and logistic and hygiene barriers, as processes for transport, storage and safety need to be (re)designed. Healthcare professionals (e.g. purchasing managers) lack complete information about social, economic and ecological costs, the true cost of products, to make informed circular purchasing decisions. Additionally, the residual value of materials recovered from circular products is overlooked and should be factored into purchasing decisions. To facilitate the transition to circular procurement in healthcare, purchasing managers need more fine-grained, dynamic information on true costs. Our RAAK Publiek proposal (MODLI) addresses a problem that purchasing managers face – making purchasing decisions that factor in social, economic and ecological costs and future benefits from recovered materials. Building on an existing consortium that developed a reusable and recyclable isolation gown, we design and develop an open-source decision-support tool to inform circular procurement in healthcare organizations and simulate various purchasing options of non-circular and circular products, including products from circular cascades. Circular procurement is considered a key driver in the transition to a circular economy as it contributes to closing energy and material loops and minimizes negative impacts and waste throughout entire product lifecycles. MODLI aims to support circular procurement policies in healthcare organizations by providing dynamic information for circular procurement decision making.
