The EneMaX project

Project description

The Belgian industry sector claims nearly half of the Belgian electrical energy demand (38.6 TWh in 2020). As industry is expected to electrify its energy demand, this share is foreseen to further rise in the near future. This justifies the relevance of exploiting the potential flexibility offered by these electricity based processes. Nowadays, flexibility potential studies and exploitation are limited to the energy-intensive industries. This implies that the massive combined potential provided by multiple smaller industrial sectors, whose production facilities are composed of machineries (e.g., mechanical manufacturing, automotive parts, food, pharma, packaging, textiles), are overlooked. The majority of these overlooked industries can be characterised as manufacturing industry, representing a total consumption of approximately 21 TWh (year 2020). Among others, the collective load-shifting potential possessed by a large number of manufacturing SMEs is estimated between 1.2% and 5.6%, depending on the types of machines. It therefore represents a total demand-side flexibility potential of 252-1176 GWh. The reason the large potential of machine flexibility is not yet included in a comprehensive energy management system is partly due to a lack of tools and partly due to lack of awareness of its potential benefits and risks of implementation.

Objectives

The objective of the EneMaX project is to study the possibilities for electrical flexibility in the Flemish manufacturing industries. To start, the exploitable flexibility potential in the manufacturing industry will be quantified. Sources of uncertainty, which can hamper flexibility deployment, will be mapped. The different research partners will then elicit the technical required adaptations on machine level, utility level, plant level and grid level to activate the flexibility potential. An activation and aggregation methodology will be developed, tailored to the manufacturing industry with its peculiarities. Hereto a market study will be performed to assess technological gaps in existing enterprise controllers and infrastructure.The rising presence of a growing EV fleet and the rapid distributed renewable energy sources with storage systems will be taken into account.

Next to technical requirements, a theoretical techno-economic assessment will be performed to gather insights on the economic viability of the provision of electrical flexibility to the distribution and transmission grid. For directly exploitable flexibility sources, this is achieved by cost calculation (i.e. infrastructure upgrade costs) and benefits (i.e. expected market revenue due to renumeration or lower energy cost). Lastly, policy and regulation gaps in engaging flexibility from the manufacturing industry, posing a barrier to deployment will be summarised in an advise report for stakeholders along the value chain.

Consortium

The EneMaX project is a collaboration of different partners in Flanders.

Project partners

• Flanders Make (BE), project leader
• KU Leuven | Mecha(tro)nic System Dynamics group (BE)
• Ghent University | Energy & Systems Lab (BE)
• VITO (BE)

Industrial Advisory Board

To gain feedback from industry, an industrial advisory board is set up, consisting of:

• De Meyer (BE), Mechanics producer
• Octave (BE), Second-life battery integrator
• Digi-flow (BE), Industrial automation and digitalisation solution provider
• Phoniex Contact (BE), Industrial digitalisation and direct current transformation solution provider
• Yuso (BE), Electricity flexibility aggregator
• ML6 (BE), Trading software solution provider
• Siemens, Solution provider across all levels
• ADN (BE), Digital transformation platform of Wallonia
• Fluvius (BE), Flemish distribution system operator
• Elia (BE), Belgian transmission system operator

Main roles of Ghent University

The Energy and Systems Lab (EnSy) of Ghent University will lead work packages 2 and 4. In WP 2, EnSy will develop a theoretical identification and quantification methodology for potential flexibility, which is specific to the manufacturing industry. Such methodology could include:

• Analysis of electricity consumption (and production) profiles, including energy vector conversions
• Identification of buffers and other sources of flexibility
• Dynamic electrical flexibility analysis
• Characterisation of flexibility

The output of this flexibility quantification methodology can used by both industry and flexibiltiy agregators. In WP3, the flexibitily quantification methology will be applied to a real world case. UGent will investigate how the identified flexibilty interacts with the electrical distribution and transmission grid. The effect on grid congestion and possible mitigation measures will be studied.

In WP4, UGent will perform a techno-economic evaluation for different valorisation options of flexibility and develop an activation strategy. Both “local” flexibility solutions, such as local renewable energy production and storage, as well as "global" system approaches, such as aggregation and clustering will be included. The latter thus also includes organisational aspects such as the clustering in VPPs and the role of Balancing Service Providers (BSPs). The current possibilities (in Belgium) for valorising flexibility will be investigated and recommendations for novel approaches will be formulated. Both the viewpoint of the flexibility supplier and the user of the flexibility will be taken into account. The main purpose is to unlock the potential of flexibility offered by the manufacturing industry as much as possible.

Duration and budget

The project runs from March 2025 until February 2027 and has a total budget of approximately 2 million Euro. The EneMaX project receives funding from the Flemish Government through VLAIO. Flanders Make is the project leader of EneMaX.

Research team at Ghent University

More information

• Contact person for Ghent University: Lieven Vandevelde —