Exactly one year ago Qurrent announced to start three to five pilot projects in 2008 with its system for local renewable energy-networks. Qurrent aspires to bring generating your own clean power to the masses. Today we announce that respectable parties are engaging in test projects with Qurrent. The first Qboxes have been in operation for a few months already.

Projects and partners
All test projects are being carried out with partners. “The partners are very valuable to us and we are very content with the parties that have chosen to work with us.” says Igor Kluin, founder and CEO of Qurrent.

The first pilot is in partnership with Techneco, one of the Netherlands’ leading manufacturers of heat pump systems. In this pilot primarily the digital communications between external energy systems (such as heat pumps) and the Qbox are being tested. A heat pump is a controllable energy system and therefore poses a relevant optimizing opportunity within the Qurrent system. The Techneco pilot started a few months ago with around twenty households throughout the Netherlands.

Another significant pilot is in partnership with Woonbron, a housing corporation with over 50.000 homes and apartments in Rotterdam and The Hague, and the Rotterdam Climate Initiative, partner of the Clinton Climate Initiative and C40 cities. In this pilot electricity is being generated on some apartment buildings. By creating a Local Energy Network with the Qurrent system, collectively generated energy can be supplied directly to the residents, without use of the ‘normal’ grid. This improves the financial performance of the energy generaters, in this case PV solar panels and some small wind turbines. The pilot with Woonbron and the RCI is in preparation; installation of the first turbine in the Schiemond area in Rotterdam is planned for the 4th quarter of this year. After that, the other five flats (192 units) can also be incorporated in the system.

We also have started a project with Vestia, a housing corporation with 70.000 units in the Rotterdam, the Hague and Utrecht areas. In this project the energy usage per households is monitored with high detail in order to optimize the use of the collective heat pump system. Also in this pilot, we will test the user-friendliness of the Qmunity website, our energy portal for residents. The pilot with Vestia is in preparation; installations will start in the fourth quarter of this year in roughly 20 homes in one complex in The Hague.

Together with OVG, the largest office real estate developer in the Netherlands, we are testing the monitoring, optimization and administration of energy systems in office buildings. OVG is a leading developer of green buildings and its customers are using more and more collective energy systems. The Qurrent system both optimize and administer such systems. The pilot with OVG starts this month.

Together with Eneco, one of the leading utilities in the Netherlands, we are working on the monitoring of micro-CHP systems. These residential heating systems provide both heating and hot water as well as electricity. Just like heat pumps, micro-CHP’s are important steerable local energy producers. The project with Eneco is in the design phase.

On top of the above mentioned projects we are also in talks with several national and international parties. One example is the Schiphol Group (Amsterdam Schiphol airport) which has put sustainability high on their agenda. Or Volker Wessels Renewable Energy Concepts (VW DEC), a significant developer of renewable concepts for homes and businesses.

First monitoring, then optimization and administration
“In every pilot, we are testing different parts of the functionality of our system.”, explains Kluin. “ By doing so we isolate potential problems and are able to solve them faster. For several months now the first 20 Qboxes have been operating stable. We are happy with that performance.”

The Qurrent system is designed to optimize and administer locally generated renewable energy is so called Local Energy Networks, or micro-grids. Optimization and administration play a fundamental role in these environments. The first pilots focus on the stable and reliable monitoring of energy flows. In a later stage the energy optimization will be applied and tested. “In this pilot we are testing the primary functionalities of the system that form the base. Once that is stable, we can easily add more functions.” according to Kluin.

24-09-2008