Belgium Pilot

Location: The demo is located in Flanders, in the province of Antwerp. The site is located in Mechelen, a medium sized Belgian city of approx. 87.000 inhabitants. KLIMAAN is the local citizen cooperation for renewable energy and operates a Citizen Energy Community (CEC) based on PV electricity production in the social housing neighbourhood Otterbeek. The current setup results in a lot of excess solar power production, for which no immediate consumption is found in the social context. Most tenants take advantage of direct self-consumption, and the general acceptance rate to novel concepts among social tenants is low. Possible extensions of the CEC currently under investigation are charging infrastructure for EVs and the connection to a new district heating network from another nearby Woonland social neighbourhood.

Specific Challenges: Considering the high capacity of the PV systems, there is excess electricity production during several periods. In this pilot, KLIMAAN wants to apply different matching approaches in order to get the running energy sharing schemes optimized, while upholding the social aspects of our setup. At the same time, KLIMAAAN wants to implement an efficient management of its highly fragmented income streams. Through gamification, the pilot wants to raise the tenant involvement and reinforce the business case.

Existing Infrastructure: Today the project consists of 70 consumer-size single phase hybrid PV-installations (all <10 kVA of inverter power). The roof area has been optimally used for maximizing solar power generation, resulting in a total of 288 kWp of installed solar panels. Both the PV-installations and the CEC are being deployed under the TANDEMS project. In the beginning of 2024, the remaining 127 houses will also be equipped with single phase hybrid PV. Maximally using the available roof area will result in an additional 462 kWp.