Industries to pilot energy system integration in port of Rotterdam

The Port of Rotterdam and Japan’s Yokogawa Electric Corporation are launching a pilot on sector integration to improve efficiencies in the port industrial cluster.

Up to six companies and two grid operators are to participate in the pilot, which is planned to coordinate and optimise the use of utilities including electricity, heat and steam and feedstocks such as water and industrial gases to deliver efficiencies and cost savings.

Key for the project is the secure sharing of data, which will take place in a cloud infrastructure and which in turn will drive an orchestration platform to enable the companies to coordinate the use and exchange of the multiple utilities among themselves.

Coupled with this will be the commercial valuation of the exchange between the companies and the energy markets, which will take place on the trading platform from the Dutch startup Distro Energy.

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Feasibility study

A pre-feasibility study by the Port of Rotterdam and Yokogawa Electric Corporation found that cost savings of between 5% to 10% could be expected through better alignment in the use of the multiple utilities.

For example, behind the meter electricity consumption could be optimised between adjacent companies to manage peak demand and reduce local congestion or a company that produces steam as a byproduct could ramp up production when a neighbouring company needs more steam to prevent that heat from being wasted.

With the port of Rotterdam home to more than 200 industrial companies, it is considered uniquely positioned to facilitate and implement a project of this type.

Up to now, the main barrier has been data sharing as individual companies such as in the petrochemical industry have generally optimised their own operations, with concerns about exposing confidential information to others.

The pilot, codenamed the ‘Starlings’ project from a flock of starlings that move as a flexible cloud for safety reasons, is intended to overcome this barrier with the cloud data flow infrastructure.

The €2 million ($2.2 million) pilot is due to start at the end of this year and run over the course of one year, in order for the full seasonal fluctuations to be taken into account.

A similar demonstration within a cluster of companies in Japan is reported to have found that the cluster as a collective performed better than individual companies, with some companies achieving savings but others having slightly increased costs and indicating the need for a compensation mechanism.

The first results of the pilot are expected around mid-2025 and will be used to determine the design of a possible follow on.