GENIUS

In the three-year European innovation project GENIUS, a consortium of partners led by TU/e will optimize the campus’ energy infrastructure and usage in order to address the growing problem of network congestion. The project will act as a blueprint for the energy management of other campus-like environments, such as industrial sites.

The GENIUS-project is funded by a strategic European OPZuid grant worth 1,375,000 euros, supplemented by investments by the national and regional government. The total project budget amounts approximately 3 million euros. The aim of the project is to solve the problem of net congestion on campus, and to serve as a testing ground for innovations, shortening their time to market.

Managing energy flows
This collaborative project comprises the installation of a large scale, 3.4 MWh battery, which is used to avoid peaks in the campus electricity grid. This battery, along with all of the campus’ energy assets like solar panels, heating systems and residential towers, will be connected through an innovative, intelligent energy management system.

This energy management software platform will effectively be the beating heart of the innovation project, enabling smart use and control of assets like batteries, charging stations and solar panels. To provide insights into the energy consumption of buildings, smart metering is installed. Based on these real-time monitoring data combined with historic data and a predictive model, the software platform optimizes energy flows within the campus network with the aim to decrease the burden on the city’s electricity grid.

Testing ground
An important feature of the project is the testing ground it provides: companies can experiment with their innovative energy technologies and demonstrate them in a real life environment. Examples are the heat storage unit that will be provided by RIFT, and the battery setup delivered by Fudura. Such a testing ground can help bring innovative solutions for the energy transition to market faster.

Once the initially closed-loop system will be fully functional, it will be opened up to also communicate with neighboring organizations in an attempt to achieve a local energy hub that helps balance the local grid load.

Strengthening expertise
The GENIUS-project brings together the expertise of TU/e’s Energy research community,  and Real Estate with several companies including start-ups and governmental organizations in a joint effort to align the energy usage of all different energy producers and consumers active on campus, ranging from research groups, maintenance companies, and housing associations to electricity suppliers.