Successful visit from Minister Cramer to KEMA

On Wednesday, February 17, Dutch minister Jacqueline Cramer (Environment) came to KEMA in Groningen for a working visit and met with Thijs Aarten, Jörg Gigler and Frits Bliek to learn more about the implementation of smart grids.

Our partners in the smart grid PowerMatching City project, Humiq Advanced Software, Essent, ECN and the city of Groningen were present to inform the minister and her staff on various details. The minister demonstrated a good deal of knowledge about the project and asked critical questions on various details to better understand the impact on policies and regulations.

"This is the new challenge," she pronounced enthusiastically after her introduction to the PowerMatching City project, Hoogkerk. KEMA is the project manager of this real-life test of smart energy systems, comprising 25 household in the Hoogkerk neighborhood.

Integral
The project is part of the European initiative, Integral, with experiments taking place in Spain and France as well. On the sidelines of the program, Minister Cramer was very interested in developments in the production and distribution of Biogas. Jörg Gigler, team manager Sustainable Energy at GCS, had the opportunity to explain the new developments. After the plenary discussion and tour around the Boltzman laboratories, the minister and her staff of four officials visited one of the households in the Hoogkerk neighborhood. After the visit, the minister wrote on her weblog that she has great confidence in the role of Smart Grids in the transition to reliable, sustainable and affordable energy.