SEEV4-City is an innovation project funded by the European Union Interreg North Sea Region Programme. Its main objective is to demonstrate smart electric mobility and integration of renewable energy solutions and share the learnings gained. The project reports on the results of six Operational Pilots (OPs) which have different scales and are located in five different cities in four different countries in the North Sea Region.Loughborough OP (United Kingdom) is the smallest pilot, being a household with a bi-directional EV charging unit for the Nissan Leaf, a stationary battery, and a PV system. In the Kortrijk OP (Belgium), a battery system and a bi-directional charging unit for the delivery van (as well as a smart charging station for ebikes) were added to the energy system. In Leicester (United Kingdom), five unidirectional charging units were to be accompanied by four bi-directional charging units. The Johan Cruyff Arena OP is a larger pilot in Amsterdam, with a 2.8 MWh (partly) second life stationary battery storage for Frequency Control Regulation services and back-up power, 14 fast chargers and one bi-directional charger. Integrated into the existing energy system is a 1 MW PV system that is already installed on the roof. In the Oslo OP, 102 chargers were installed, of which two are fast chargers. A stationary battery energy storage system (BESS) supports the charging infrastructure and is used for peak shaving. The FlexPower OP in Amsterdam is the largest OP with over 900 EV charging outlets across the city, providing smart charging capable of reducing the energy peak demand in the evening.Before the start of the project, three Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were determined:A. Estimated CO2 reductionB. Estimated increase in energy autonomyC. Estimated Savings from Grid Investment Deferral
Rapportage groep studenten van het Smart Solution Semester, in opdracht van onderzoeker R. Nijdam van het lectoraat Regio-ontwikkeling. Het deelproject van deze studenten behelst deel 1 van een onderzoeksproject naar de ontwikkeling van een beslissingsondersteunend systeem voor ondernemers in de verblijfsrecreatieve sector om hun bedrijfsvoering zo duurzaam en circulair mogelijk te organiseren. De rapportage is gepresenteerd aan een representatieve groep vertegenwoordigers uit het werkveld (ondernemers en branchevereniging).
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Key takeaways from the project underscore the importance of fostering long-term collaborations between technical experts, communities, and institutional partners. By integrating technical innovation with human-centred design, the SUSTENANCE project has not only advanced renewable energy adoption but also established a framework for empowering communities to actively participate in sustainable energy transitions. Moving forward, the lessons learned, and solutions developed provide a solid foundation for addressing future challenges in energy system decarbonization and resilience.
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Vanuit het bedrijfsleven is vraag naar het ontwikkelen van coatings met specifieke hoogwaardige eigenschappen. Een technisch haalbare en kosten efficiënte methode om dit te doen is door het inmengen van nanodeeltjes in coatings of in polymeren. Op dit moment is de beschikbaarheid (op grotere schaal) van hoogwaardige nanodeeltjes (grootte en deeltjesgrootte distributie) echter nog een knelpunt. Microreactortechnologie kan hiervoor een goede uitkomst bieden. In een microreactor kunnen reactiecondities zeer goed gecontroleerd worden en daardoor zal de reproduceerbaarheid goed zijn. Ook is het eenvoudig om een reactie in een microreactor op te schalen naar een groter volume. In het RAAK-MKB project Flow4Nano worden 2 sleutel technologieën van het lectoraat Material Sciences van Zuyd Hogeschool bij elkaar gebracht: nanotechnologie en microreactor technologie. In dit project zal de focus liggen op de toepassing van nanodeeltjes in optische coating voor zonnecellen en voor glastuinbouw. De toepassing in zonnecellen is een focus van het lectoraat Zonne Energie in de Gebouwde Omgeving van Zuyd. De toepassing in de glastuinbouw is een focus van de Hogeschool Arnhem Nijmegen in het lectoraat duurzame energie. De onderzoekvraag voor dit project is: “Can we produce nanoparticles with high specificity for use in advanced coatings and polymers with tailored functionalities for application in greenhouses and solar cells using (micro)flow?” De consortiumleden Zuyd Hogeschool / lectoraat material sciences (microreactor technologie / nanotechnologie), TNO/brightlands Material Centre (nanomaterialen voor energietoepassingen), Kriya Materials (producent nanodeeltjes) en Chemtrix (microflow apparatuur) zullen TiO2 en ZnO nanodeeltjes maken en karakteriseren. De consortiumpartners Zuyd / lectoraat Zonne-energie in de duurzaam gebouwde omgevingen HAN (lectoraat duurzame energie) zullen de geproduceerde nanodeeltjes testen in optisch actieve coatings voor toepassingen in zonne-energie en glastuinbouw respectievelijk. De consortiumpartner NanoHouse zal het stuk disseminatie op zich nemen.
A fast growing percentage (currently 75% ) of the EU population lives in urban areas, using 70% of available energy resources. In the global competition for talent, growth and investments, quality of city life and the attractiveness of cities as environments for learning, innovation, doing business and job creation, are now the key parameters for success. Therefore cities need to provide solutions to significantly increase their overall energy and resource efficiency through actions addressing the building stock, energy systems, mobility, and air quality.The European Energy Union of 2015 aims to ensure secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy for EU citizens and businesses among others, by bringing new technologies and renewed infrastructure to cut household bills, create jobs and boost growth, for achieving a sustainable, low carbon and environmentally friendly economy, putting Europe at the forefront of renewable energy production and winning the fight against global warming.However, the retail market is not functioning properly. Many household consumers have too little choices of energy suppliers and too little control over their energy costs. An unacceptably high percentage of European households cannot afford to pay their energy bills. Energy infrastructure is ageing and is not adjusted to the increased production from renewables. As a consequence there is still a need to attract investments, with the current market design and national policies not setting the right incentives and providing insufficient predictability for potential investors. With an increasing share of renewable energy sources in the coming decades, the generation of electricity/energy will change drastically from present-day centralized production by gigawatt fossil-fueled plants towards decentralized generation, in cities mostly by local household and district level RES (e.g PV, wind turbines) systems operating in the level of micro-grids. With the intermittent nature of renewable energy, grid stress is a challenge. Therefore there is a need for more flexibility in the energy system. Technology can be of great help in linking resource efficiency and flexibility in energy supply and demand with innovative, inclusive and more efficient services for citizens and businesses. To realize the European targets for further growth of renewable energy in the energy market, and to exploit both on a European and global level the expected technological opportunities in a sustainable manner, city planners, administrators, universities, entrepreneurs, citizens, and all other relevant stakeholders, need to work together and be the key moving wheel of future EU cities development.Our SolutionIn the light of such a transiting environment, the need for strategies that help cities to smartly integrate technological solutions becomes more and more apparent. Given this condition and the fact that cities can act as large-scale demonstrators of integrated solutions, and want to contribute to the socially inclusive energy and mobility transition, IRIS offers an excellent opportunity to demonstrate and replicate the cities’ great potential. For more information see the HKU Smart Citieswebsite or check out the EU-website.
In the context of sustainability, the use of biocatalysis in organic synthesis is increasingly observed as an essential tool towards a modern and ‘green’ chemical industry. However, the lack of a diverse set of commercially available enzymes with a broad selectivity toward industrially-relevant substrates keeps hampering the widespread implementation of biocatalysis. Aminoverse B.V. aims to contribute to this challenge by developing enzymatic screening kits and identifying novel enzyme families with significant potential for biocatalysis. One of the most important, yet notoriously challenging reaction in organic synthesis is site-selective functionalization (e.g. hydroxylation) of inert C-H bonds. Interestingly, Fe(II)/α-ketoglutarate-dependent oxygenases (KGOs) have been found to perform C-H hydroxylation, as well as other oxyfunctionalization, spontaneously in nature. However, as KGOs are not commercially available, or even extensively studied in this context, their potential is not readily accessible to the chemical industry. This project aims to demonstrate the potential of KGOs in biocatalysis. In order to achieve this, the following challenges will be addressed: i) establishing an enzymatic screening methodology to study the activity and selectivity of recombinant KGOs towards industrially relevant substrates, ii) establishing analytical methods to characterize KGO-catalyzed substrate conversion and product formation. Eventually, the proof-of-principle demonstrated during this project will allow Aminoverse B.V. to develop a commercial biocatalysis kit comprised of KGO enzymes with a diverse activity profile, allowing their application in the sustainable production of either commodity, fine or speciality chemicals. The project consortium is composed of: i) Aminoverse B.V, a start-up company dedicated to facilitate chemical partners towards implementing biocatalysis in their chemical processes, and ii) Zuyd University, which will link Aminoverse B.V. with students and (bio)chemical professionals in creating a novel collaboration which will not only stimulate the development of (bio)chemical students, but also the translation of academic knowledge on KGOs towards a feasible biocatalytic application.
