BELGIUM - REScoopVPP

Energent/Ecopower
Belgium
Energent/Ecopower
Belgium
Energent is a Belgian cooperative over 1700 members founded in 2013 and located in Ghent. Energent is active in the fields of renewable energy projects, energy efficiency and energy services. Energent facilitated more than 600 of its members in improving energy efficiency in their houses and assisted more than 1000 household in PV installation.

In the Belgian pilot site, Energent will collaborate with Ecopower cv, a cooperative supplier and producer of green energy with more than 60,000 cooperative members. To 50,000 of its cooperative members, Ecopower supplies electricity from its own renewable energy production assets (e.g. wind turbines and PV installations). Ecopower was founded in 1991 and has three main goals: investing in renewable energy, supplying 100% green electricity to its cooperative members and promoting a rational use of energy, renewable energy and the cooperative business model in general.

The Belgian pilot will work further on the results of the ‘Buurzame Stroom’ project and the Interreg project cVPP. It will gather 50 users to test the COFY-box and focus on the integration and optimisation of self-generated electricity for heating and cooling.

The Belgian REScoopVPP pilot site collaborates closely with the FlexSys project, a project funded by the Belgian Energy Transition Fund, where Energent and Ecopower are project partners as well.
Interview with the Ghent pilot site managers
Ine Swennen (Ecopower) and Nicolas Vandamme (Energent) explain how the REScoopVPP tools support their cooperative and members!
REScoopVPP community tools being tested
Energent and Ecopower engage their cooperative members to become frontrunners in the energy transition! By offering innovative services, the cooperatives aim to make optimal use of the available renewable energy and to decrease the total energy cost for their members.
Optimise self-consumption
Energent supports 50 cooperative members that have solar panels on their roof, to optimise their energy consumption, by using electricity at moments when their own solar panels are producing it.
Monitor energy use
The members of Energent have access to an energy monitoring dashboard that visualises the consumption and production of their household.
Reduce the impact of the capacity tariff
Energent aims to reduce the impact of the capacity tariff for their members. In Flanders, people have to pay the cost for their ‘power peak’, meaning the maximum power a household uses during a 15 min time interval in a month. By managing power consumption in the house and reducing the power peak, this cost is reduced for the household.
Optimise the benefits of thermal storage
Energent is testing the benefits of using thermal storage. Heating a hot water tank at moments when people have a lot of solar energy, could provide financial benefits for the household.
Forecasting
Ecopower as a cooperative producer and supplier of green energy will test and improve a forecasting tool that should help Ecopower to optimally forecast the amount of electricity their production installations will generate and the amount of electricity that will be demanded by their customers at a given moment in the near future.
Ghent solar city

Energent organises the group purchase of residential solar installations. With the introduction of the digital meter, optimisation of self-consumption becomes a key aspect in the calculation of the payback time of this type of investment.

By including the REScoopVPP cofybox in this service, the payback time of the customers investment will be decreased. This will encourage more people to join the group purchase of installations in future.
Making another step towards the energy transition
Ownership of different aspects of the energy value chain has been defined by Energent’s members as one of the most important values to pursue.

By joining REScoopVPP, Energent is keeping the control over the use of residential flexibility and on the way it can benefit the community.
REScoopVPP will provide opportunities for Energent and its members.

By joining REScoopVPP, Ecopower can contribute to maintaining the balance on the Belgian electricity grid, resulting in lower costs for the cooperative and therefore lower energy bills of its customers.

Thanks to these new tools, the cooperative will be able to set up a whole range of new activities and enable its members to increase their renewable consumption to further move towards sustainable lifestyles!