I have 34 years of experience working on electricity grids (only Rob beats me with almost 50 years 😂).
I could be called the engine of our network, having made all kinds of innovations in the electricity field. For years, Ron has transformed my ideas into a website/software. Rob has realized many medium voltage projects with us, and Remco has given many regional network managers grey hairs.
On March 4, 2020, just before COVID, we started our biggest innovation to date:
Measuring all electrical quantities in an electricity grid or from a producer/consumer in 1-second intervals.
Controlling producers/consumers for congestion purposes with everything visible in real-time on our website.
Smart Grid Flevoland BV with 310 MVA connected power and a 155 MVA grid connection was and is the ideal demonstration project to show how with a limited grid connection, you only lose 1% of production. With intelligent control, you save millions on your grid connection.
A second hobby of ours is controlling the imbalance and emergency power markets of TenneT. In September 2021, we started converting the Pelleboer model, which has been operational since 2014, into an Artificial Intelligence (AI) which was initially called Hiemstra. We are currently doing this with Werner and Oeljana from Vantage AI. The AI predicts the price of tomorrow's imbalanced market (just like the rule of thumb model Pelleboer does), which allows us to pre-position various products, consumers and batteries.
If low prices are expected, then you ensure that your battery is empty at the right time; and if high prices are expected, then you ensure that your battery is full. Especially at Ecofactorij, good money is made by applying the AI (and at the same time, TenneT is helped).
I work closely with all the people in our circle/network to streamline their ideas into one big picture. Some fields I really had to understand thoroughly. One example being, Pim’s influx databases. We are currently processing 500 million data points per day with influx, and for this you need the hardware of M3.
It took me almost three years to understand Pim - kind of.
But yes, I am a hardcore electrical engineer (specializing in energy technology), and those on the left side of our circle (on our homepage) are easier for me to understand than those on the right side. On the other hand, for Ron, he gets those on the right side more easily than those on the left.
12 different disciplines working closely together to achieve exceptional innovations.