Accelerating the energy transition: Looking back on The Annual Seminar Energy Lab South East

While many neighborhoods and cities tend to lack (clean) energy, De Tafelberg was bursting with it on March 27th.

Experiments

The key lesson from all the presentations and workshops was the importance of addressing problems at the appropriate level. The Energy Lab is what AMS Institute calls a 'living lab': a place where various parties collaborate to learn by experimenting in the city. These experiments may be very small, but they can sometimes be the key to transformation at the national or European level.

Keynote speaker Pallas Agterberg emphasized that the approach to issues such as grid congestion must undergo radical change. We must start with the local community and intelligently organize supply, demand, and storage together with local energy collectives.

Local and personal

There is a lot to be said about a local, personalized approach, as demonstrated by Marianne and Hayat from the De Verbindingskamer in Rotterdam. In line with Pallas Agterberg's vision, De Verbindingskamer does not limit itself to the physical approach of becoming a gas-free city. Instead, they seize the energy transition as an opportunity to coordinate a broad social approach. After 170 home visits, they successfully linked 110 requests for help from residents to the right agencies.

Connecting social issues with technical solutions presents challenges to professionals. For example, a project manager of a housing association in Southeast mentioned that operating from the Real Estate department, she encounters livability issues in preparing a technical renovation, a matter that the Housing department deals with. Following her observation during the break-out sessions, Pallas stated: ‘Professionals are faced with issues they cannot solve themselves.’ John Grin added: ‘We should address problems at the right level, for example, in Het Nationale Klimaatplatform’, of which both John and Pallas are members. ‘Sometimes, these issues involve a managerial dilemma beyond the control of a local professional, or it may be legislation that gets in the way."

Scaling up

Mark Kauw, Team Lead & Urban Living Lab Program Developer, explains that the challenge lies in scaling local innovations: ‘At the Energy Lab, we encounter the "pilot paradox" (Metze, 2024) which highlights the disparity between the innovations and knowledge gained in experimental projects and the lack of change in the overall system. The added value of the Energy Lab is not only collaborative learning at the local level but also knowing when lessons from Southeast should scale up to an urban or national level.’

Key contributions and discussions

With such a packed agenda and a diverse lineup of speakers, it’s impossible to cover every detail. Instead, here’s a brief overview of the key contributions and discussions from the day.

• Joe Llewellyn (AMS Institute, MIT) hosted a workshop on energy poverty, during which participants practiced using data from the Commondatafactory.
• Gijs van Leeuwen (TU Delft) led a session in which participants role-played to explore future paths for local energy collectives.
• The pilot paradox also played out in Juliette Mohamed's session (Gemeente Amsterdam), with the question being how bio-based renovation from great example projects can now become mainstream.
• After four years of practical research, Avi Ganesan (Resourcefully), Philip Gladek (Spectral), and Wouter Zomerdijk (TU Delft) shared their lessons and results on the opportunities and obstacles in realizing local, inclusive, flexible energy systems.

Mark Kauw shared his experience: ‘I have been involved in this unique network for almost 3 years. I also know from other living labs in the city how difficult it is to achieve intensive, long-term collaboration focused on real social challenges. That is why the seminar on Thursday was so exciting: passionate people, active in very different organizations, are extremely motivated to learn how they can do more in their work to achieve the fair and rapid energy transition we all want so much in Southeast.’

PS: Keep an eye on the openresearch.amsterdam page of Energie Lab South East for visual reporting by Buro Brand, a photo impression, videos of presentations, and summary reports of the break-out sessions.