Page 73 - Connecting cities and communities with the Sustainable Development Goals

United for Smart Sustainable Cities
Connecting cities and communities with the Sustainable Development Goals

The participants were mainly early adopters, with high educational levels and income and were recruited
through the network contacts of the project partners, as well as calls for participation in a local newspaper.
The average monthly income of households in PowerMatching City ranged between € 3000 and € 4000.
Households in PowerMatching City have a 19% higher monthly disposable income, compared to average
families in the Netherlands that have a monthly average disposable income of € 2900. Households in
PowerMatching City were made up of an average of three persons, with children between the ages of 10
and 14.
This pilot started in 2007 and deployed a number of implemented technologies which included hybrid heat
pumps, in-home energy displays, PowerMatcher energy matching software, photovoltaic systems, smart
meters and smart appliances, smart thermostats, micro-combined heat and power (CHP) systems and mini
gas turbines. At a distance, electric vehicles and a wind turbine were connected as well. The project focused
on attaining optimum capacity management in a smart grid, and matching energy services with the demands
and wishes of end users. Phase 1 of the project started in 2007 with the realization of a local smart grid with
22 homes and was concluded in 2011. It focused mainly on the demonstration of technical feasibility of the
smart energy system. In this phase the Power Matcher software was introduced to ensure that supply and
demand of a wide variety of energy resources can be fine-tuned automatically. The aim is to use the
PowerMatcher for much more energy traffic points. Appliances are equipped with sensors which enable
households to turn them on – or off – depending on energy supply and present-day tariffs. Buying and selling
of both heat and electricity occurs automatically and at an optimum. Released data are stored on an external
server so that households are controlling their energy behaviour. Aggregated results of PowerMatching City
insights are available in the public domain (open source). This creates possibilities for market parties to
develop and introduce new household appliances and business models.
Phase 2 (2011–2014) explored ways to involve the residential end users and identify market mechanisms
under a smart grid regime. An additional 18 homes were added in 2011, bringing the total number of
participating homes to 40. This phase has become incorporated into the Dutch state programme IPIN
(Innovation Programme Smart Grids). Consequently, the second phase of PowerMatching City led to the first
business models to calculate flexible prices for both heat and electricity for each situation during the day. In
the course of time, start-up companies will grow, having the right knowledge of smart grids on the one hand,
and/or expertise to use, operate and maintain appliances and related IT systems on the other.

2.3 Results

The project first showed that the implementation of smart energy grids in the consumer market is worth
between 1 and 3.5 billion euros.
PowerMatching City demonstrated that smart energy systems are technically feasible and offer energy
flexibility and are also economically valuable. In fact, the net gains from the consumer market could reach
3.5 billion euros. These benefits are based in part due to the savings derived by the three involved
stakeholders. Grid operators avoided costs for investments and maintenance of the grids; energy providers
could manage their customers' energy consumption more effectively so that they could purchase energy
more competitively and also were able to use locally generated energy to match local supply and demand;
and finally consumers took control of their electricity behaviour and could save money.

Two energy services jointly established by partners and residents facilitated flexibility: the “smart cost
savings” enabled the residents to keep the costs of energy consumption and generation as low as possible,
and “Sustainable together” supported them to become a sustainable community.
The project also demonstrated that if this smart and flexible energy system is to be implemented in the
consumer market on a large scale then it will need to be standardized, in order to reduce costs, and energy
purchasing will need to take place on the basis of actually measured energy consumption or generation.

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