Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk

Building an energy community

Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk

Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk

Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk is a pilot project of Energiek Alphen aan den Rijn and the Dorpsoverleg Hazerswoude-Rijndijk Oost. We are investigating how a group of residents, companies and organisations in Hazerswoude-Rijndijk and Koudekerk aan den Rijn can jointly generate and share sustainable energy in a smart way. You can register as a participant on this page.

Pilot project Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk

Join our pilot project Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk, a local energy community of residents, businesses, institutions and associations in Hazerswoude-Rijndijk and Koudekerk aan den Rijn. Together, we are building a future in which we share our sustainably generated energy smarter and come to a better balance as a community. You can register by filling in the form below. On this page, we will explain the next steps.

Start

The start of the pilot project was on 22 January 2026 during an information evening organised by the Dorpsoverleg Hazerswoude-Rijndijk Oost and Energiek Alphen aan den Rijn. The initiative stems from the project Samen Slimmer Verduurzamen held by these two organisations, in cooperation also with Actief Rijnwoude, in 2025. Click here for more information on that project.

First phase

The first phase of the pilot project Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk consists of a measuring period. Under the motto ‘measuring = knowing’, in this phase we want to learn how much energy the participants can share and what the possible yield is. To map this out, we are working with Noorderlicht Energie. This is a software company and a forerunner in the energy transition. Noorderlicht supports our pilot.

Step 1

Sign up as a participant in our pilot. Please use the form below to do so.
To participate, we need your mail address, postcode and house number. If you are a company and have a connection larger than 80A (large business use), you should indicate this. We will then contact you because we need a little more information.
Because we are in the construction phase with Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk, we greatly appreciate it if we may occasionally approach participants personally for additional information, or to collect wishes and ideas. These insights help us to further strengthen the community. For this reason, we ask you to also pass on your telephone number to us.

Step 2

After your registration, you will receive an e-mail from Noorderlicht Energie asking you to create an account to register your metering data. When registering, use the e-mail address you received this invitation with and have your smart meter number to hand; you can find this number in your meter box under the barcode. Some addresses have more than one meter. In that case, you must indicate which meter you want to be monitored. If your invitation shows more than one EAN code, check your energy bill to see which EAN code corresponds to your bill. Your energy bill shows the EAN code that corresponds to your meter.

After registering, you can easily log in each time and then you will be redirected to Noorderlicht Energie's secure environment. They create a daily overview and so you will get insight into:

  • your own energy consumption;
  • The combined energy consumption of the participants in Glanskern Hazerswoude-Rijndijk;
  • The amount of locally generated energy;
  • the growth of the energy community.

Want to know more about Noorderlicht Energy? Then take a look here.

Privacy

The measurement data are stored securely and remain completely private. Your data are never visible to other participants; vice versa, you do not have access to other participants' data. You can decide to stop your participation in our project at any time, in which case your data will be completely deleted.

Glanskern Benthuizen

Hazerswoude-Rijndijk is Energiek Alphen aan den Rijn's second Glanskern project. A Glanskern pilot was first set up at the end of 2024 in cooperation with the Benthuizen village consultative body. At this page you will find more information on that. Below you can watch an animation on the results so far of Glanskern Benthuizen.

About Glanskern

Below, we reflect on the significance of the Glanskern concept and local energy communities, in the energy transition towards sustainable generation and sharing energy with each other. We do this based on the conviction that our energy system can and must be designed differently and better.

The cores are - in this case - Hazerswoude and Koudekerk aan den Rijn. Gloss 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.

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.

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