Building a local energy community
Pilots Gloss Core
Pilots Gloss Core
On this page, we tell you more about our Gloss Core pilots. There are currently three of them, which are in different stages. For specific information about each pilot, click on the block below. General information about what a Glanskern is and does can be found below these blocks.
Click on the button below if you want to participate in one of the pilots.
What else would you like to know?
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.
Also, some owners of different properties agreed to look for collective measures together. Two new meetings were held with this so-called leading group. There, the foundations were laid for what grew into the Glanskern Benthuizen pilot 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.
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:
- Performing a gloss scan + reporting
- Implementing the recommendations from the Glansscan report in the property
- Further shaping the energy community
- Setting up the digital community (measuring, managing and predicting)
- Establishing and managing energy facilities for the local community
- Preparing the Glanskern Energy Hub
- 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.
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.
