Accelerating Towards a ‘One-Stop-Shop’ for Sustainable Energy Solutions

Customer case

November 4, 2024 · 7 min read

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Accelerating Towards a ‘One-Stop-Shop’ for Sustainable Energy Solutions

Zonnegilde has entered a strategic partnership with Blockbax to establish a control room for the proactive monitoring of all its solar panel projects. This collaboration enables Zonnegilde to rapidly expand its portfolio of sustainable energy solutions in the coming years, driven by the ambition to become a leading one-stop-shop for sustainable energy.

The Netherlands: World Leader in Solar Panels

In April 2022, NOS reported that, for the first time, the Netherlands generated more sustainable electricity than was consumed for a significant portion of the day. The electricity price dropped so far below zero that some people were even paid to use electricity – a situation previously described as unique ¹. Today, the concept of negative electricity prices is widely recognized, and with 3.5 solar panels per capita, the Netherlands has become the world leader in solar panel installations. Last year, nearly 5 GWp was added, bringing the total installed capacity in the Netherlands to just under 25 GWp ². This is good news, but the rapid transition to sustainable energy is putting significant pressure on our power grid. Despite substantial investments by grid operators, the grid is reaching its limits in more and more areas, leaving thousands of companies on a waiting list for new connections. This issue is expected to worsen as the demand for grid capacity grows faster than new connections can be established ³. For instance, the number of electric trucks and vans is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years to save costs and comply with environmental regulations, such as the zero-emission policy in major cities starting in 2025 ⁴. Zonnegilde’s sustainable energy solutions enable this necessary growth. With a comprehensive offering that includes solar energy, energy storage, and charging solutions, Zonnegilde supports customers in their energy transition, even in times of grid congestion and fluctuating energy prices. Zonnegilde takes full responsibility for the entire process, from design and implementation to management and maintenance, ensuring that customers are fully supported.

Innovating for Growth

A comprehensive service that combines different sustainable energy solutions is new to this market and requires continuous innovation. Together with partners from various disciplines, Zonnegilde consistently seeks the best offerings for its customers. This has led to a significant increase in the types of installations and suppliers used, with different configurations deployed as needed.

Teus Lowerens

Project Manager Digital Organization

Zonnegilde

Effortlessly earning money with renewable energy is what Zonnegilde makes possible for its customers. Having control over operations is crucial to this, as it allows us to proactively respond to malfunctions and maximize the performance of our installations for our customers through real-time insights.

Different suppliers provided their own monitoring systems, resulting in a lack of a central overview and the need to check each system individually for the latest status. Additionally, these systems were often limited in functionality and offered little customization. It was, for instance, difficult to assess and combine malfunction alerts with the latest measurement data. This approach placed increasing pressure on the service department, prompting Zonnegilde to seek a solution that could consolidate data from all these different systems and allow them to prioritize and address malfunction alerts according to their own criteria.

Blockbax as a Control Room

In their search, Zonnegilde chose Blockbax, a configurable data platform for monitoring and managing various types of installations. The platform is low-code, meaning that minimal programming is required to set up insights, alarms, and calculations. This allows Zonnegilde’s operational teams to configure these elements themselves, as they often have the best understanding of the data context, reducing the burden on the already busy IT team. Additionally, the platform is completely open and not tied to any specific sensor technology or hardware supplier, allowing data from different installations and suppliers to be centralized on a single platform.

Teus Lowerens

Project Manager Digital Organization

Zonnegilde

We work with many different suppliers and technical components, and our range of energy solutions is growing. That’s why we were looking for a flexible, agnostic platform. With Blockbax, we can consolidate data from all these different installations in one central location. Additionally, the platform is fully configurable, allowing us to quickly implement a solution that perfectly fits the workflow of our service department without a lengthy development process.

With Blockbax as the control room, the service department can focus entirely on handling the most relevant alerts, generating insights that help prevent similar issues in the future. The platform also provides continuous insight into the output of the solar parks, known as the performance ratio. Previously, these types of analyses were done manually, but now Zonnegilde can take immediate action.

Looking Ahead

Zonnegilde anticipates significant growth in the number of solar panel projects and other sustainable energy solutions such as batteries and charging stations. All of these will be monitored using the Blockbax platform to ensure the highest availability and output for customers. Additionally, Zonnegilde sees opportunities to intelligently manage combined installations in response to supply and demand in the energy market, with flexible curtailment of solar parks playing a key role.

About Zonnegilde

Since 2012, Zonnegilde has grown into one of the larger national solar panel installers for SMEs and property owners. In 2021, Zonnegilde installed 68,000 solar panels across the Netherlands, bringing the total installed capacity to over 150 MWp. In addition to the installation process, Zonnegilde provides full support to customers in the areas of development, financing, and maintenance, allowing them to operate their PV installations effortlessly. More information at www.zonnegilde.nl.

About Blockbax

Blockbax provides a low-code Industrial IoT platform for processing, standardizing, and analyzing historical and real-time data sources. The platform’s low-code setup empowers technicians, electricians, and engineers to translate this data into valuable insights and actions. Blockbax is used by customers such as Croonwolter&dros, Bredenoord, and Eneco for monitoring and managing various assets and energy sources, resulting in fewer malfunctions, lower maintenance costs, and higher customer satisfaction. More information at www.blockbax.com.