Genk, 14 March 2022 – Today ENGIE signs a three-year collaboration agreement with EnergyVille, the energy expertise center of KU Leuven, VITO, imec and UHasselt. Belgian and international experts from ENGIE will join forces with researchers from EnergyVille in specific projects related to new and innovative technologies in areas such as energy efficiency, smart grids, renewable energy, hydrogen and green gases. The aim of the collaboration is to identify, scale up and roll out specific solutions to accelerate the transition to a carbon neutral future.
Three-year collaboration agreement
After previous successful collaborations in areas such as solar energy, electrical grids, battery storage and residential energy applications, ENGIE and EnergyVille today sign a new three-year collaboration agreement for a series of research projects into innovations for a faster transition towards carbon neutrality. Experts from ENGIE Laborelec – the important Belgian center of expertise of the ENGIE Group – will investigate together with international ENGIE researchers and scientists from KU Leuven, VITO, imec and UHasselt how we can reduce the energy consumption of residential homes, buildings and industry, how we can adapt the electricity grid in function of more renewable energy, and how techniques for CO2 capture and green gases such as hydrogen will play a role in the energy and heat supply of industry.
Accelerate research
“Through ENGIE Laborelec, ENGIE has long been working successfully with EnergyVille, which is at the forefront of the entire range of energy technologies and can also explore the various possibilities of a sustainable energy system through its advanced models in a thoroughly scientific way. The successful Belgian collaboration has even recently made ENGIE decide to also bring its foreign centers of expertise on board. This structural collaboration agreement allows us to significantly accelerate research: instead of looking at what is needed project by project, we can now avoid paperwork and switch much faster. The regulatory sandbox in Genk, which is coordinated by EnergyVille, also plays an important role in scaling up this process. This allows us to test and optimize technologies even more extensively on a large scale and with real end users,” explains Gerrit Jan Schaeffer, general manager of EnergyVille.
“Belgium has significant expertise in energy systems and technologies. We owe this expertise, among other things, to the historic, structural collaboration between the energy sector and academia, which makes it possible to quickly and effectively test the latest scientific insights against practice in the field. ENGIE wants to play a pioneering role in the energy transition to a carbon-neutral future and therefore continuously develops innovative solutions to optimize and decarbonize the energy consumption of its residential, professional and industrial customers. Thanks to the partnership with EnergyVille, we can identify, scale and bring successful new technologies to market faster, accelerating the energy transition,” says Thierry Saegeman, Country Manager of ENGIE in Belgium.
Signed by
For ENGIE, the cooperation agreement is signed by Thierry Saegeman (Country Manager of ENGIE in Belgium), Olivier Sala (Vice President of ENGIE Research & Innovation), Michaël Marique (CEO of ENGIE Laborelec) and Jan Mertens (Chief Science Officer of ENGIE Research & Innovation). Paul Van Dun (KU Leuven), Dirk Fransaer (VITO), Luc Van den hove (imec) and Bernard Vanheusden (UHasselt) signed for EnergyVille.
