Vitens goes sustainable for every drop with energy storage
Vitens produces drinking water 365 days a year and 24 hours a day. After all, water has to come out of the tap. So the company never stands still. The processes are now geared to a stable energy supply, but with the threat of grid congestion this is not guaranteed for the next few years. This created a desire to be more conscious of their energy consumption.
Increased energy security due to impending grid congestion.
Company: Vitens
Need: by being flexible with electricity consumption spread energy consumption throughout the day
Solution: large-scale energy storage
With storage technology, we can make our own energy supply more robust.
More flexibility in consumption
'The processes of a company with 90 locations like Vitens are not something you just change, which is why we went looking for a partner who could really think along with us. We found that in Fudura,' says Joost. 'This collaboration feels good, our Business Development departments came together to determine together what this development issue should look like,' says Joost. 'We really got to the bottom of it and brainstormed extensively.
The central question was: how can we use electricity more spread out over the day and shift in consumption. Focused on more flexibility, in other words. Based on an extensive study with available data, we listed the possibilities and made a proposal to put a pilot into practice. The next six months will be all about experimenting and testing. In it, we will also explore the boundaries of processes that have been fixed for a long time, everything to optimize our energy consumption.'
Extensive testing with energy storage
Fudura is installing a large battery, sea container size, at Vitens' production site in Enschede. This will smooth out peaks in power consumption and make the electricity grid more balanced. 'The challenge is to apply that properly to our operations,' Joost explains. 'We work with an automated process and have to test extensively how we can use (green) energy at smart times. Without affecting our production.'
'With these experiments we measure whether we can thus reduce CO2 impact, save costs or optimize operational reliability. Or a combination, of course. The goal is clear: to demonstrate what has a beneficial effect on these criteria. And that this kind of smart technology must therefore become part of our future energy infrastructure. Then we can roll it out to more locations. And thus contribute positively to this social energy issue!
Working together and learning together
Daan Pelders - Senior Business Developer at Fudura
'What I find special is the way Vitens wants to explore this with us. Not a classic client/contractor relationship, but working together and learning together in areas such as energy technology, data science and safety. This helps us at Fudura to understand the customer even better and to optimize our services accordingly.'
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