glanskern benthuizen

Building an energy community

Glanskern Benthuizen

Glanskern Benthuizen

Glanskern Benthuizen is a project by Energiek Alphen aan den Rijn, in collaboration with the Benthuizen Village Council. We are investigating how a group of residents, businesses and organisations in Benthuizen can work together to generate and share sustainable energy in a smart way. This page provides information about the origins, concept and implementation of the project.

Pilot project Glanskern Benthuizen

Glanskern Benthuizen is a pilot project. It started at the end of 2024 with seven participants. Phase by phase, it will be scaled up to 25 to 40 participants. If the pilot is successful, this approach can be rolled out across more village centres and neighbourhoods in Alphen aan den Rijn. In this way, we are building local energy communities, in which participants work together to achieve a sustainable, reliable and affordable energy supply in their own neighbourhood.

What does Glanskern Benthuizen mean, both literally and figuratively? What does it mean for participants/residents on an individual level, and for our environment and the energy transition on a collective level? How does it work? You can read the answers to these questions below. We explain it clearly in the animation below.

Of course, we will also provide updates on the status of our project and what we are experiencing and learning. We can put these lessons to good use in the next phases of Glanskern Benthuizen and in the roll-out of subsequent projects.

On this page, we also consider the significance of local energy communities in the energy transition to sustainable generation and the sharing of energy. We do so based on our conviction that our energy system can and must be organised differently and better.

Register

If you would like to know more about Glanskern and/or participate in the project, please fill in the registration form in.

The seed for Glanskern Benthuizen was planted during two well-attended energy meetings in Benthuizen, organised by Energiek Alphen in collaboration with the Village Council in the autumn of 2024. The theme of those evenings was: Smarter Sustainability Together. The central question was: what opportunities do you have as a village community to ‘shape the energy transition locally’?
By this we mean the transition from our current energy system, which is mainly based on fossil fuels (such as oil, gas and coal), to a system that uses sustainable sources such as solar, wind and biomass. The aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.

A lot of interest

Interest in the Samen Slimmer Verduurzamen (Smarter Sustainability Together) meetings in Benthuizen was remarkably high, with several dozen participants. This success was partly due to the board members of the Dorpsoverleg (Village Council), who actively campaigned for people to attend the information evenings. Energiek Alphen aan den Rijn's decision to tackle this theme in Benthuizen was not without reason. The presence of an active local community is one of the crucial success factors for the formation of a local energy community.

Around thirty visitors to the meetings signed up for an energy consultation at their homes. These consultations focus on measures you can take in your own home to save energy and other ways to reduce your energy bill, such as floor, wall or roof insulation, or the purchase of solar panels or a heat pump.

Several owners of various properties also agreed to work together to find collective measures. Two new meetings were held with this so-called frontrunner group. There, the foundations were laid for what would become the Glanskern Benthuizen project.

The core is – in this case – Benthuizen. Glans is a contraction of ‘GCommunity in balance’It's that simple, but what's the story behind it?

In a Glanskern, participants work together at the local level to keep the energy system in balance. They generate as much of the energy they use together as possible in a sustainable manner. Participants are a mix of residents, businesses, institutions and organisations. Under the direction of Energiek Alphen aan den Rijn, they explore opportunities to jointly generate, store and distribute sustainable energy. For example, with solar parks, wind turbines, charging and (smart) distribution systems.
The energy generated in one place is immediately used elsewhere in the Glanskern or stored in a communal (neighbourhood) battery. A sophisticated monitoring system continuously monitors energy generation, storage and consumption.

Consumption and generation are precisely coordinated. Surplus energy is stored for times when there is little or no sunshine and insufficient wind. In the event of excessive peaks and troughs, there is a single shared connection to the national energy grid for trading electricity. But in fact, the local energy community operates almost entirely outside the large power network. As a result, participants do not experience any negative developments on the national network, whether caused by geopolitical factors, natural disasters or ‘normal’ disruptions. In a Glanskern, participants reside under a secure energy dome, protected from congestion issues and imbalances on the national energy grid.

Glanskern is also a concept for balancing the energy consumption of a local community – comfortably and efficiently. This is done in three steps:

In step 1 (Basic), buildings are equipped with measuring equipment and a scan of the building is made, both structurally and of the components of the energy installation. Based on this scan, the owner receives advice on measures to (further) optimise the energy installation and on the implementation of structural measures. Furthermore, attention is paid to energy awareness and the energy behaviour of the users of the building.

In step 2 (Connected), all control facilities installed in the community are linked to each other via the internet. Often, a communal facility (such as a village/community centre or sports facility) is designated as the central location. This so-called Energy Hub houses shared facilities, such as a (neighbourhood) battery for energy storage and charging facilities for electric vehicles, or provides space for (additional) solar panels and small wind turbines.

In step 3 (Balanced), the energy community is linked to the energy grid and the energy market. Limited remaining energy surpluses and shortages are traded on the energy grid.

Click here for a more detailed description of these steps. Click here for a description of the activities at each step. Click here to read more about the so-called design principles of the Glanskern concept.

The result is that participants in the local energy community generate their own energy using sustainable resources, with a lower risk of congestion and even lower energy prices, which are fixed for a longer period.

Participants

The Glanskern Benthuizen project originally had seven property owners. These are three homes, two commercial buildings, a church and the canteen of a sports club. This is a nice mix of users, each with their own profile:

  • Homes – morning/evening use
  • Office/commercial buildings, schools and institutions – daytime use
  • Clubhouses, sports and cultural/leisure facilities, church buildings for evening/weekend use

Preferably, there should be a mix of properties that already generate their own energy (e.g. solar panels or battery storage), but also properties that do not yet have this capability or have very limited capacity. This variation increases the possibilities and makes it easier to share energy. In addition, the year of construction of the property can also play a role, especially if the properties have not recently been made more energy efficient.

Core team

For the Glanskern Benthuizen project, the owners (or their representatives) agreed to work together on their energy issues under the direction of a core team. This laid the foundation for this local energy community. The core team consists of expert Energy Coaches and project leaders from Energiek Alphen aan den Rijn.

To put the Glanskern concept into practice, the core team drew up a project plan with background information, a description of the activities and a financial section. To fund the activities, a grant application was submitted to the province of South Holland, which has since been approved. Glanskern Benthuizen was also designated as a pilot project by local4local. Click here For more information about Local4Local.

Activities

The project plan for the Glanskern Benthuizen pilot project lists seven activities:

  1. Performing a gloss scan + reporting
  2. Implementing the recommendations from the Glansscan report in the property
  3. Further shaping the energy community
  4. Setting up the digital community (measuring, managing and predicting)
  5. Establishing and managing energy facilities for the local community
  6. Preparing the Glanskern Energy Hub
  7. Connecting Glanskern as an Energy Hub to the national energy grid

Click here for a description of the activities. The first steps in implementation were taken in 2025. The practical implementation proved difficult at times, but that is to be expected with a pilot project. Learning often comes through doing. The lessons and experiences will be taken into account in the next phases and in the roll-out of new projects.

In the first phase of the pilot project, seven participants took part with the following objects:

  • Three houses
  • Two companies (office building)
  • A church building
  • The football club's canteen

A Glansscan was performed on six of the seven properties. The structural condition of the buildings was assessed and equipment was installed to take specific measurements of energy consumption and the energy generated by existing facilities, such as solar panels or other facilities. These measurements included various important values, such as temperature, humidity, occupancy, CO2 in important rooms and all incoming and outgoing energy flows.

Collecting all the data proved to be more difficult than expected in practice. Not only is it costly, but we also learned that installing hardware is prone to errors and delays. The core team has now investigated alternatives that could potentially provide a solution. Furthermore, high-consumption connections work differently (not only technically, contractually and in terms of costs, but also in terms of measurement) than low-consumption connections.

glanskern benthuizenA local energy community is not just about residents, but a mix of residents, businesses and institutions, while the local authority and housing associations are also involved. Some parties feel more involved and committed than others. Involving everyone takes time and energy, more so than if you were to start a project with residents alone, for example. Furthermore, the continuity of energy cooperatives that want to become communities is not a given. Their employees are often (expert) volunteers of senior age, who are managing their own time. For progress and continuity, there may be a need for a professional service organisation to support the cooperatives. And that is much broader than just the energy supplier 2.0 (EDV), such as to|new energy.

All circumstances and data are listed in a report for each property, on the basis of which the owner/participant has received advice and recommendations on improvement measures.

Energy sharing: the next step in the energy transition

Energy is the backbone of our modern civilisation. Our prosperity and comfort are entirely dependent on a constant, reliable supply of energy. However, our current energy supply is based on a centralised, outdated model that is no longer sustainable. The transition to sustainable energy is not only an opportunity, but a necessity. Energy sharing is the crucial next step in this transition.

For centuries, our energy supply has been dependent on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. These fuels are burned at a limited number of central locations to generate electricity, which is then distributed to millions of customers via an extensive and complex network.

The downside of this model is now painfully clear: greenhouse gas emissions are leading to climate change, with increasing weather extremes, rising sea levels and enormous social and financial consequences. The energy transition – the switch to sustainable sources such as solar and wind power – is therefore in full swing.

The major advantage of these sustainable sources is that they can be generated locally: on the roofs of houses, above car parks, on farms and in wind farms. This decentralises generation and brings it closer to the consumer.

However, this decentralisation poses a fundamental challenge: the generation of solar and wind energy is weather-dependent and variable. Solar and wind energy are not available on demand. This erratic supply conflicts with our traditional electricity grid, which is designed for a constant, predictable flow from centralised to decentralised points.

This leads to serious problems:

  • Congestion
    On sunny, windy days, so much electricity is generated locally that the grid cannot cope with the transport. Grid operators sometimes even have to disconnect generators.
  • Imbalance
    The supply of energy does not always match demand, which threatens the stability of the grid.
  • High costs
    To solve these problems, the entire electricity grid must be upgraded. These investments, amounting to billions of euros, will ultimately be passed on to all consumers in the form of higher grid management costs.

These problems call for a fundamentally different approach: local energy sharing. The idea is simple: generate energy locally, use it locally as much as possible, store surpluses locally and share it within a community before the electricity enters or leaves the main grid. This requires a paradigm shift: from a centrally distributed system to a local, collaborative ecosystem: an energy community.

What does such an energy community look like?

An energy community preferably has a mix of users. Its strength lies in diversity. An effective community combines different types of users whose energy profiles complement each other, such as homes with peaks in the morning and evening, offices and businesses that consume mainly during the day, sports clubs and churches with peaks at weekends and in the evening, and charging stations with a flexible profile. By combining these profiles, the peaks and troughs are smoothed out, creating a much more constant and efficient collective demand.

There is sufficient local sustainable generation available. The community manages its own generation, ideally a mix of wind energy (also at night and in winter, a crucial addition) and solar energy (especially in summer and during the day). This mix ensures a more consistent and reliable year-round generation profile. These sustainable forms of generation are becoming increasingly cheaper, especially for a community that is not profit-oriented.

Due to the unpredictability of generation, the community cannot avoid local energy storage. This storage is the key to balance. It consists of short-term batteries to bridge hours or days, e.g. storing surplus solar power for use in the evening; and long-term (seasonal storage) to bridge seasonal differences (e.g. using summer surpluses in winter). Technologies such as hydrogen and heat storage are under development here and are fortunately becoming increasingly affordable.

A smart control system (Community in Balance system, the digital twin) is, as a digital system, the brain of the community's operation. This system continuously measures all energy flows (generation, consumption, storage) of each participating object, analyses and predicts energy demand and generation – based on weather forecasts and usage behaviour. It also controls the energy flows: it directs power to where it is needed, charges or discharges batteries, and only exchanges power with the main grid when strictly necessary.

By sharing locally, the energy transition becomes completely green and sustainable, with maximum local utilisation of the region's own solar and wind power generation.,

And more affordable, with longer fixed prices; sustainable generation and storage are already cheaper, and the community has no profit motive.

And more reliable because dependence on the grid is drastically reduced, a local, balanced grid is more resilient, there is less transmission loss over long distances in the grid and, above all, it reduces the need for expensive grid reinforcement, which saves all users a great deal of money.

Energy sharing is the future

For highly energy-intensive sectors (such as heavy industry or large data centres), a locally shared grid may not be sufficient; they require specific, large-scale solutions. But for the vast majority of our society – neighbourhoods, villages, business parks – energy sharing is the logical, necessary and promising next step in the energy transition. It is the key to a stable, affordable and truly sustainable energy system for the future.

Local4Local – Glanskern Benthuizen

Glanskern Benthuizen is one of the pilot projects in the so-called upscaling programme of Local4local. The aim of this programme is to create even more places in the Netherlands where locally owned sustainable energy is shared within the community itself.

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