Alfen delivers energy storage system for self-sustainable football stadium 18-12-2017

Unique combination of charging hub for electric vehicles and energy storage

ALMERE, THE NETHERLANDS – A unique combination of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and energy storage allows visitors of the Cars Jeans football stadium in The Hague to charge their electric vehicles with maximal power from renewable resources. Alfen delivers this fully integrated project for its client Scholt Energy Control, supported by grid operator Stedin and the municipality of The Hague. The project is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2018.

Charging your electric vehicle while watching a football game

During the daytime, the ADO The Hague football stadium generates its own energy from solar panels on its roof. This energy is mostly needed at night, to light the stadium but also to charge the increasing amount of electric vehicles of its visitors. Alfen’s energy storage system can store the solar energy that is generated during the day, and supply this energy to the electric vehicles during the night.

Ton Koning, Program Manager Air Quality at the municipality of The Hague, comments: “Through this initiative, renewable energy can be used locally for the electric vehicle charging hub. We hope this will further stimulate the use of electric vehicles and consequently improve the air quality in our city.”

Unique integrated energy solution

For this project Alfen will supply a charging hub for electric vehicles consisting of 20 charge points to the municipality of The Hague, including an advanced load balancing platform to maximize the utilization of the existing grid connection. This charging hub will be connected directly to Alfen’s energy storage system. Alfen will also supply its remote management platform and connect the system to renewable energy sources and the electricity grid of Stedin.

Andreas Plenk, Global Sales Director Energy Storage at Alfen, comments: “This project brings together all of Alfen’s areas of expertise: grid connections, EV charging equipment and energy storage. Integrating these areas of expertise will play an increasingly important role to incorporate the growing amount of renewables and electric vehicles, as these are causing imbalance on the electricity grid.”

New energy storage project for Scholt Energy Control

This storage system is the second project that Scholt Energy Control has awarded to Alfen this year. Scholt Energy Control is an energy supplier to businesses in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. In May of this year, Alfen delivered the first storage system in the Netherlands connected to a wind farm for a consortium involving Scholt Energy Services (an affiliate of Scholt Energy Control).

Sander Drissen, Business Development Manager at Scholt Energy Services: "This project is truly unique in the combination of use cases. We will use TheBattery of Alfen to store the oversupply of renewable energy generated during the day. This energy can then be used in the evenings when it is most needed. In this way we make optimal use of the generated renewable energy. We will also smooth out the grid impact of a large number of electric vehicles that plug in at the same location at the same time. And finally, when the stadium is not being used, we can use the storage system for energy trading to further improve our business case.”

Paul Broos, Project Manager at grid operator Stedin adds: “Solutions that integrate smart charging and storage will be of increasing importance to avoid sizable grid investments as a result of the growing amount of renewable energy sources coming on line in combination with the roll-out of electric vehicles”. 

Photo: Hollandse Hoogte