ENGIE Benelux, ENGIE Labs network and the research partners of EnergyVille, KU Leuven, VITO and imec, signed a collaboration agreement covering a range of collaborative tasks in the field of smart energy systems of the future.
 
With complementary technical skills and state-of-the art measuring and testing equipment available at EnergyVille and the several ENGIE Labs, this cooperation is a step towards developing new solutions for the energy market.
 
ENGIE develops practical solutions to fight climate change and reduce carbon emissions. To support this ambition, ENGIE leads a strong R&D activity based on an international network of research centers, the ENGIE Labs.
 
EnergyVille is an association of the Flemish research institutes KU Leuven, VITO, imec and UHasselt which focuses on sustainable decentralized, decarbonized and digitalized energy systems. Since this directly coincides with the core of ENGIE’s technological strategy, ENGIE Benelux, ENGIE Labs and the research partners of EnergyVille have joined forces to test and develop new solutions for ENGIE customers.
 
Previous collaborations have led to the setup of a joint KU Leuven/ENGIE 3D Printing Lab and Fab Lab (focused on metallic parts printing) and the technical support of ENGIE Labs to the Belgian Solar Car team run by KU Leuven students. Imec has contributed to ENGIE tech scouting capacities in the field of new materials for solar energy leading to recent investment of ENGIE in Heliatek, a leader in organic PV. Research topics that are currently being covered with the EnergyVille research partners are smart inverter testing for solar panels, the health monitoring of batteries, coating tests for photovoltaics and new technology bricks for the grid integration of renewable energy sources.
 
A first development project is the connected home, focusing on the implementation of a new digital tool for advising residential customers on the choice of energy solutions for their home.