1. Introduction
What is a closed distribution grid?
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An electricity grid in a geographically defined zone
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Industrial or commercial location, or location with shared services
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No domestic customers
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The owner of the grid is also the main contractor
In today’s global drive toward sustainable energy and net zero emissions, the rapid shift to electrification presents significant challenges for many industries. Companies must navigate evolving regulations with ambitious deadlines while mitigating the risk of congestion (due to increased peak power demand) that can severely impact operations.
As a result, developing innovative, well-orchestrated strategies for managing energy grids has become essential to ensuring reliability and resilience in an increasingly electrified world.
2. The need from the client: (re)size the TSO infeed
Currently serving approximately 150 consumers with around 250 EANs, DNB BA plays a pivotal role in supporting Brussels Airport’s ambition to achieve net-zero carbon for its own emissions as an airport operator by 2030 (scope 1 and 2 emissions). This goal requires adopting new, sustainable electricity uses while optimizing existing energy consumption.
The increasing consumption is impacted by multiple factors:
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Brussels Airport plans to replace its central heating installation by 2030 at the latest with a Net Zero Carbon installation, which will heat the terminal buildings without emitting carbon dioxide.
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Brussels Airport is working with a consortium of 21 partners on solutions for improving the sustainability of aviation and airports within the European Stargate-program. Project initiatives over the past year have included the ordering of electric ground handling equipment, the provision of the necessary charging infrastructure and an autonomous electric shuttle for airport staff working airside.
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Several thousand of EV Chargers in passengers and employees parking
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Electrification of buses
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Renovated or new buildings
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…
The burning question is then: by how much does DNB BA need to increase its in-feed from the national TSO (Elia)? In any case, increasing it will require significant one-off infrastructure investments and has to be ready for the energy transition objectives of Brussels Airport.
The decision is not trivial and needs to take into account much complexity. In order to ponder all the criteria, DNB BA has sought specialized support from Jetpack with the following key priorities:
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Understanding current electrical consumption : developing machine learning models that characterize the current electrical consumption accurately, with capability to project future usage based on known factors
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Analysing new electricity demands : evaluating the impact of the potential additional load introduced by new electricity-consuming projects
When dimensioning the infrastructure, we need to look at peak consumption, and it can be impacted by different factors such as the impact of the new usages and the implementation of potential optimisations strategies (i.e. trying to shave the peak by spreading it). So, it quickly became clear that a simulation interface would be required in order to assess the impact of different scenarios, compare them and quickly see their impact on the peak consumption.
3. The developed solution
With a dedicated team of Data Scientists and Software Developers, we have built an application that enables Brussels Airport to model their future electricity usage in a dynamic way, allowing them to progressively add or remove projects with different parameters as their company’s roadmap evolves through time.
3.1. The simulation definition
A simulation is defined as a set of parameters (i.e. scenario) and an end-result..
BAC stakeholders can create different simulation scenarios in the application, one simulation being configured by a fixed set of projects with their specific parameters. It can be seen as a scenario for what the future might look like for the airport’s electricity consumption in one given development context.
3.2. The simulation result
Once each of the energy development projects have been set for the simulation, they each receive a model that defines how we expect their electricity consumption to evolve through the years. Examples of such projects are the addition of new Electrical Vehicles charging stations, the construction of new buildings, the replacement of the old Heating Plant, and many others.
In addition to these new development projects, the already existing electricity consumption of the airport is modelled as well : this “baseline” consumption is set to evolve with the quantity of passengers, global temperatures rising, and other additional factors. Future renovation projects (such as insulation works) are also taken into account.
Finally, it is important to note that besides electricity consumption, we also model the electricity production specific to the airport, through its solar panels among others. This production is crucial for better understanding the net electricity needs at the airport.
3.3. The visualisation
Once a simulation is complete and calculated, the application provides the possibility to analyse the results in a visual manner. Monthly power peaks, daily loads, monthly and yearly power volumes are visible for the 50th, 95th and 99th percentile. In addition to this, a “time above the threshold” analysis is available, where for a selected power threshold, information is provided on the quantity of hours where the electrical consumption exceeds the threshold, as well as its distribution throughout the year and day. This analysis is particularly helpful for understanding the power shortage risks of different possible contracts.
