Talents from Twente research sustainable energy in Friesland

A team of Advanced Technology students started an original and challenging project at the beginning of 2017: how sustainable can Friesland’s energy supply look by 2050?
“The question arose at EFA’s international conference”, workgroup chairman Henk de Vries explains. “The EFA consists of various regionally active parties such as ourselves, the Scottish National Party, the Catalans, and parties from Poland and Germany. We are all actively committed to regional development and want to make a positive policy contribution to it.”

In short

Sustainable future in Friesland
Science Shop Twente will collaborate with project developer Greencrowd from Woudenberg

Global Goal

Student team

The members of the Advanced Technology student team went on a thematic study trip to the United States in the summer of 2017, where they visited companies that are active in sustainable technology development. Jan Eggenkamp, co-organiser of the trip, explains: “The FNP’s question suited this perfectly. It was not hard for us to find fourteen motivated students. We see this project as ideal preparation. The students also earn sponsorship for the trip with this assignment.”

First phase

The first phase of the project has already been completed. Desk/literature research has been carried out for seven technological fields, as objectively as possible. Seven technological fields were screened under the guidance of Dr Maarten Arentsen, senior lecturer in Energy Innovation at the University of Twente: wind energy, hydropower plants, energy from biomass, solar energy (divided into regular and concentrated/thermal solar energy, tidal power plants and geothermal energy.

“Expectations, scenarios and vulnerabilities vary greatly from one technological field to another”, says Arentsen. “This requires a great deal of nuance, a critical approach and an analysis of the literature as it is.”

The students worked on these seven technological fields in pairs. They examined three scenarios for the future:

One in which the current political policy remains unchanged;
One in which serious work is being done to achieve a maximum temperature rise of two degrees Celsius on earth;
One with a new policy, in which a limited number of countries decide to work on reducing greenhouse gases.

As it turns out, the percentage of sustainable technologies in the total world energy consumption varies between these scenarios, from 40 to 76 per cent. It is a huge difference. But the students also conclude this: “The expected shares of these sustainable energy technologies vary enormously. However, wind energy, cogeneration, biomass and solar energy will provide the most important returns regardless of policy decisions.”

Improvements

The students also analysed foreseeable technology and cost developments; in terms of return on investments, the scaling up of technologies, and storage technologies/strategies.
“The story is well put together”, says workgroup chairman Henk de Vries. “But it is mainly a prelude to the second part of the assignment for us. We want to model, simulate and calculate to various levels, close to the reality in Friesland.” De Vries is thinking of energy consumption scenarios for villages and regions between 2020 and 2050. These scenarios have to take the cooperation in dealing with and combining the different types of energy consumptions into account: by citizens, for transport and by industries.
De Vries: “We hope to derive a piece of policy advice from this which we can use to prepare the Province of Friesland for an independent energy policy so that we are ready for a sustainable future. An example: we are curious whether investing in geothermal energy could be sufficiently attractive for Friesland.”

Greencrowd

The Science Shop Twente will be working together with project developer Greencrowd from Woudenberg for the second part; they already have a lot of practical experience with the implementation and financing of various sustainable energy projects.
“I am looking forward to working with these students and coming up with some feasible and coherent scenario’s”, says green entrepreneur and leader of Greencrows Jan Willem Zwang. “Combining our practical knowledge with the scientific knowledge and fresh perspective of the students can provide a fantastic added value.”

Twente: strong in sustainable innovations

Many solutions for producing sustainable energy and saving energy in smart ways are being developed in Twente. Some of the hot topics are wind energy, solar energy and bio-energy.
In addition to having truly green and clean electricity and other sustainable fuels, Twente also has solutions for reducing CO2 emissions.

Date: 25 October 2017 |

Source of tekst: Science Shop Twente |

Author: Twente.com