The societal impact of different technical lay-outs of an energy hub

The Dutch government's "Green deal 173" increases the challenge of electrification of mobility. The "Green deal 173" states that city centres will be emission free as from 2025 and whole cities will be emission free as from 2050. Emission free cities are in need of electric buses in the city centres. Thus, the need for charging infrastructure for new electric bus fleets is needed in urban areas. These urban areas are densely populated with not a lot of space to work in, therefore the electrification of mobility creates a new challenge for the distribution system operator, concessionaires, concession granters and municipalities. An energy hub is a solution to this challenge. An energy hub combines the new charging infrastructure with the existing electrical infrastructure in a new system, with large energy users and new technologies such as solar energy and vehicle to grid (storage). This report will explain the societal impact of different technical lay-outs of an energy hub, to do so different case studies are modelled and simulated to test the technical feasibility. Furthermore, the costs and benefits will be assessed and valued to research the business case of an energy hub, because the difference between theory and real life implementation is bound to cost reduction and/or profitability in most cases. The results show that an energy hub can reduce the net capacity of the used lines, reduce the occurrence of peak demand and be profitable over time for the parties in the energy hub. However, all the parties involved need to work together to achieve the realisation of an energy hub. The distribution system operator, concessionaires, concession granters and municipalities need to find similarities in their priorities instead of conflicting priorities. The similarities in their priorities will be an important factor to realise an energy hub. Electrical Engineering | Sustainable Energy Technolog