Name: Episode 3 – The rise of the energy manager: democratising the energy system
Uploaded: 2026-10-29T14:30:05.021Z
Duration: 1 h 23 s
Description: Episode 3 – The rise of the energy manager: democratising the energy system

Transcript for "Episode 3 – The rise of the energy manager: democratising the energy system": Technology and how it connects, all the parts of the renewable decentralized energy system. And today, we discuss about the people and the businesses. What can they do at home in their business to grab the opportunities? One of our questions is, does everyone need to be an energy manager themselves or do they need to have one? First, some house rules. On the right side in the screen, you can see a Q and A section. You can post your remarks, questions, and we will bring them to the panel later on in the discussion. They will be back at the end of the session. But first, let's start to introduce the guests of today. On my right hand is Robert van Gent. Robert, can you tell us a bit about you and your organization? Yeah. Thanks. My name is Robert van Gent. I'm the Charging Manager of the Dutch EV Drivers Association. We started eleven years ago and, in the meantime, right now we have almost 24,000 members, and we represent the EV driver and do a lot of lobby work, information and research on driving electric car and charging infrastructure. Okay, thanks. Glad to have you here. Tim, what's your story? Yes, my name is Tim Loco. I'm a business developer at BOM MG and Mater. BOM is currently one of the larger construction companies in The Netherlands and we also installed more than 100,000 AC chargers in The Netherlands and more than 2,000 DC chargers. We are quite large and we work for different CPOs. It's a lot of abbreviations, but I guess all the viewers know what they think. So... Yeah. If not, we'll ask a question. Yeah. Arnaud. Yeah. So my name is Arnaud van der Zee. I work for T and L, also at the Green Village, which is a field lab in which we do, we have test facilities to test new kinds of innovations for, for sustainable future. The whole discoloration of energy is really a big part of our research at the moment. So, yeah, that's my role and the reason I'm here today. Thanks, Glenn, to have you. Per, our man from Norway. Yes. Yeah. My name is Geroset. I work at the Last Mile Solutions as an innovation manager, and I focus on our smart energy services that we currently work into Intellect and develop with our partners. Okay. Thanks. It's a nice combination in perspective, I think. We start with the first part of our conversation. It's called from consumer to prosumer. What is Real Today? Robert, if you can start explaining what is a prosumer. Prosumer as someone that sells energy instead of just consuming it, in short. Why I like the subject is because I see the electric car as part of the energy transition and we see that that is coming really to the people at home now. We see a lot of interest in, among our members in, for example, smart charging, but also integrating your car in the whole energy system at home. And, what we see from research is that, the electric vehicle drivers, they are really the frontrunners in this whole transition. So we have a lot of people, overall high share of our members that have solar panels, that have dynamic, energy tariffs, that have, already home storage, home battery, for example, and everything that comes with it. They are doing it in reality now. It's not just... They're doing it. I did. Yeah. But they are also sometimes inventing it because they are also the first ones yeah, that that... They've covered the problems or or the hurdles that we still have to do there to to solve there. And what kind of people are doing? Is this just the revenge of nerds or... It's it's it's more or less... I think I wouldn't call them nerds. That's that's maybe a strange word. But, I think there are... These are more or less the tweakers because you have to, find out, what works with what, what kind of battery or smart charging software piece or car works for your situation. There's still a lot of investigation and research before you have a good working solution. It's more than three years. Yeah. Front runners. Yeah. Do you recognize Robert's views? Any comments or different views? Yeah. I think sure it is. You're talking about from a consumer prosumer perspective. I think there are still lots of integration work to be done. So every company that's also in this this field is coming from an from an angle. And and, the challenges are in in combining those. And it's still quite hard for the consumer slash prosumer to to find its own role in this. We see that every day at our lab. And can you elaborate a little bit? What do you see at your lab? What is... Yeah. So so mainly, we see the the the societal need, I would say. So there is this this need for, or let's make it even more simple. Sustainable energy system is a digital energy system because it's... You need to balance the system in general. And the better... The more you balance it, the more economic it is, the more interesting it is for all stakeholders, also the consumer to consumer. But that's... That needs lots of integration, and we see those companies coming to our side with those innovative IDs, but also still battling to make them connect first. They'll achieve that. They're most of the time technical companies, but then make it simple for a consumer and prosumer to use. That's, I would say, still the next barrier to, to overcome. Yeah. Thanks. I believe it's not. Yeah. Still work to do it. I was I was laughing a bit because I think everyone knows, like this one colleague, for example, who has connected like his whole house. Yeah. Like his solar panels, his battery, maybe even his TV or his curtains will open and close automatically. So you need to be proactive. But we look for standards, I think, to standardize it so everyone can use it far easily. Yeah. Also keep it safe, I think. Keep it safe. No one wants someone to turn their refrigerator on plus 40 degrees. Exactly. That's safety thing and robustness. So we we used to search a stable energy system that always works when we plug something in. And by making it more complex, which is needed, how we do set up, the robustness also really a challenge. So simplifying, making interpretivity more standard, standardization in general, I think, is all really important. I think we'll talk about that more today. Yeah. We will. Tim, can you, give us your view on, the things companies are doing now? I see a lot of companies that are willing to invest in renewables and, e mobility, partially as an answer to the high fossil fuel prices at the moment. Yeah. CO2 targets. What are they doing? Because the grids, well, it is a challenge in The Netherlands and in many countries. Yeah. I think the large difference we see from like five years ago is like getting a large grid connection is yeah, almost, yeah, it's not happening currently in The Netherlands, unfortunately. So what we what we get asked more as a builder, as an installer, is, can you start with, like, an energy scan? And, can we look at, like, the grid connection we currently have? Can we maybe add some solar? Can we do smart energy management? And from there, like, once we get that overview, then we can decide together which charges we can add, how many DC charges we can add, how many AC, do we need to install battery, do we maybe increase the PV, the solar capacity? Yeah, it's a lot more complex than five years ago, especially for the larger companies. Can you make it work or is it usually impossible? No, it's not as impossible. I think the funny thing is that sometimes when, for example, a client currently has like a grid connection and in two years they have the the the the larger capacity. So in those two years, we add, for example, a battery and we add some solar and the chargers. Then after two years, once they got the larger capacity from the grid, sometimes they don't even need it anymore. They just leave it there. They don't want to pay more for the cost, the grid cost. They just leave the smart because it's also like the prosumer. It's also sometimes can earn some money with you. Can you give us your perspective from last mile solutions? Are these, well, new markets for you? Is there a big opportunity for last mile solutions or is it still far away? In terms of flexibility, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. So helping the companies who are struggling with their grid capacity, for instance. Well, we see, that customers can do a lot more more with actually what they have available. So you don't need to wait five years to upgrade the grid capacity in the business side just by optimizing for the energy that's available locally and maybe moving the charging window around a bit. You should be able to accommodate maybe 30, 40% of more chargers, throughout the day. So there's definitely room for improvement. Also. And what's your view on connecting all these different systems? Because we talked about solar, EV, but there are also heat pumps and maybe, the stationary batteries and and much more. Yeah. I think that's, like, the really the core thing to work on first. Right? The essentials. Make sure you optimize use for the local energy assets. That's charge points, batteries, solar panels. I mean, even more... But bidirectional charging, what can it do with the car? It's also plugged in. Right? So it's just coming up with the right systems that can help, just plan and coordinate that energy orchestration effectively. Right? Yep. We're also looking at, can we even predict when charging needs to happen, so that can optimize even further. So there's all of this tweaking that can be done, that will just improve the quality of service. And let's make it easier for customers to just essentially still be able to grow your business, even though grid capacity is at the cap. Right? Yep. Yeah. And is it also something you see across Europe or is it very much a Dutch problem? Well, it's just gonna become a growing problem across the world. I mean, obviously, Netherlands is the hardest hit, but we see everyone's moving in that direction. It's, yeah, it's just getting enough power to everywhere. It's a challenge. Price is a whole other topic, but, yeah, I think it's just gonna become a broad problem. Yeah. So that was probably the best place for innovation. Yeah. I think this this will be a place where we test and stress test the systems and then deploy them from here as well. Yeah. Other other countries can benefit from our, mistakes and, right? Right. Yeah. And, Arnaud, do you always look happy when you hear the word testing? Testing, affiliate. Yeah. That was a great... Yes. I see.... Reality. Yes. We're doing new stuff and and then you need to... I I truly believe in testing, learning, testing, learning this whole test cycle to to get to this product that you actually want to offer to consumers. Yeah. And are you also active in the field of testing for companies or is the focus on, like, consumers? And I would say we we mainly test for companies. So companies come up with innovations, and we give them a facility where they can test those systems in in a in a location that really looks like the... That the normal build environment. It isn't normal build environment, but it doesn't have to work. We have people living on-site, there are 30 people living on-site, 30 people working every day on-site, but they are used to it. That stuff is not working. We've got every time to make it better. And and this takes time, but I think it's really important to to take that phase and use The Netherlands. Yeah. Hopefully, also the Green Village as a testing facility to make your product the best in the world. I actually have a question for you because, I think there are, like, two routes to go. So... Or there's, like, one company that makes everything and it's all connected really well to each other, very robust, or everybody is doing his best in class thing, and we connect it in a really great together. So how do you... Do do you think there will be a future of working... Best companies in their fields working together or more, when it takes all kind of a future? Good question. I can't speak to our long term policy, but I would say it's a combination of the two. Right? Certain core services we wanna keep in house, just because of the nature of what we do. But I think, we're gonna lean a lot on specialists long term. Right? Because they just work really well with the energy services in general. Right? So... So the answer on your question, we need to connect with everything probably. Now we... Not yet. We really... No. The partnerships is the way you go. 100% sure. Yeah. Is there a test you would love to do and yet not are able to do or not? Yeah. What we see now actually in this field is we see lots of companies that are new. Because it's a new field, you see some opportunities, and you start more or less from scratch. And I see Phil, a lot of, existing companies still waiting a bit to see what's the right moment, when when we expect the kind of revenue stream, all the logical questions as a as a, existing company. But I am... I'm really wondering what's what's happening there. Actually, what do I see at our test side, I see mainly the new companies, and they are obviously learning a lot Yeah. About their product. I would expect and hope for more known companies also to step in this field and start testing first and then maybe I think the market is... If you test are not that expensive, you can just do that. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're in The Netherlands, so we should always talk about money. Actually, really? Subject we love. So that's the second, episode. Who manages the energy and who captures the value? So we are going to discuss it with panel. But first of all, we start with a question for you at home. Who should manage the energy assets of households and businesses? You'll find the poll on your screen if everything works like it should. So please give us your answers and we will later come back to the things you said. But first, we dive into the value chain and the money questions with the panelists. We start with Pierre. Can you say something? Is there value in flexibility? And if so, can you give us some numbers? What would an optimistic guy or girl say? And what would a conservative say that's the value of flexibility? Sky's the limit. Right? Maybe. I think it depends a lot for household versus businesses. Right? For households, we see simply moving to a dynamic energy contract. It's, you can save a few €100 a year. If you also add into, the, you know, the willingness to cycle your batteries for bi directional charging, you can maybe save an additional 700 to €1,000 a year. With some best case scenarios, I think maybe two, three times that. That's the outlier case, so let's not say that as a standard. But it's still... That's still significant for households to actually be willing to, you know, start engaging in these services. Right? For businesses, just looking at scheduling, we see businesses can reduce the energy bill maybe 30, 40%. Right? With a typical charge side of maybe, 24 charge points, we see they can easily save €4,000 in a year just by shifting your charging window to a little bit later in the day. Right? It's not a lot to... But the big impact is already quite big. Right? So that will already impact the total cost ownership for, business sites that might even be on the edge. Right? So with a little bit better services here, we might even just improve the overall, commercial model across the board. Right? So... Yep. So in terms of first steps, just make sure the core things are in place for businesses. Load balance effectively, do the best with what you have, then start adding scheduling and other smarter services on top in order to kind of unlock more and more value. I think Luke mentioned this briefly in, last talk, what this is a layered approach, step by step, like we also discussed. Yeah. But these are serious numbers. A lot of households and companies are struggling with their energy bills. You say a reduction of 30 or 40% is possible. Yeah. It spends a lot on the side, of course. Yeah, of course. But I mean, if your cars are, let's say, a typical business time, so people come and plug in a car for eight hours, there's a lot you can do in those eight hours. How does it work, this money advantage, this financial advantage? Who pays it? Good question. This how we will land on this business models long term is something we're still working on, but I'm hoping it can be like a shared benefit. You just sign up and then you just get a, you know, significant chunk as far as CPO just for the willingness to just shift your charging window to later in the day. So, that's currently being explored, but, yeah. So... Yeah. Thanks, Tim. Do you recognize these kind of numbers? Yeah. We recognize it's actually at one of our sites, one of our buildings. Our grid connection is way too small for, and we look like 25 AC charge, four DC charge at different buildings, offices. We have the LMS Edge, their smart controller installed, and we basically start charging at 10:11 in the morning currently. When the sun is shining, especially there's no problems. Everyone is full when they leave for the office and they go to their home. And we charge them when the sun is shining, we charge them for, I think, 80% green. So huge value. Yeah. Wow. So you make it happen. A project that was impossible becomes possible and you give big financial benefit. Your customers must love you. Yeah. Maybe. It helps. Yeah. You're all sharing these relatively optimistic view. Yes and no. I think, yes, it's it's it's it's so dynamic. So these guys obviously are coping from today. This is happening today. These guys are created today. Obviously, we are looking a bit on on on the on the dynamics of this field and a market and then I think the fundamentals underneath these are really logical at this share energy and smart moments when when it's for free. Yeah. It's it's so you you just know there is there is a market. We need to organize it. We made fun of it like I think five years ago that we said, yeah, to to make a smart cost more energy than it solves. I mean, we really came back now to these numbers and I think there's still lots of value to discover. But while I said that, we see the practicalities of implementing those, systems. And and, there's a... That we call it, and it's like theoretical flex. So on your drawing board and calculating the numbers, you come up to a kind of monetary value. And you stick that to it and the reality of real systems, sometimes legacy system, an old charging pole that's already there. And you see the the the, the the real flex. And it's called pure end complex and real flex. And, obviously, we have to diminish the value a little bit, and we don't know the drop. It's still that we are... We're learning by building those sites and solutions. How big is... Maybe it's a small drop, but it can be a huge investment model. And what do you think that companies or households need to harvest value? Yeah, I think that you actually get to the point, do they want... They do want the value but do they want to operate to get the value? And that's still, I think, something that we we mainly look from the technical point of view and a business point of view at this solution, not so much about how you... How much do you want to be involved? I think it's more your ad domain. And, maybe you can... Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, I think it's critical to, to get everyone engaged in this... In that new transition and, the whole smart home and the smart energy. It's critical that there's significant revenue for for the individual, for the households, because that's that's also one of the most asked questions that we get at our help desk. What do I need to, do smart charging? What do I need for a car or some system or charger to be able to do vehicle to home or vehicle to create? But what we see is that in general, there's a lot of willingness for people to participate in it and to join that. But, if the revenue is not very high and the system is not foolproof, then when people only make like €200 a year for Smart Charking, If there's one or two glitches in a year and they end up with a card that does not charge in the morning, they will drop it. It's simply not worth enough for them. So the question that we also get a lot is like, there's a lot of willingness and interest to to, participate in vehicle to grid, or mostly vehicle to home in The Netherlands because we see that everyone is preparing for the end of net metering next year. So people want to store the excess energy in their car and use it later on. But we still have problems with, explaining to them or pro... Like, give them a clear answer what is what is the revenue in in a few years out from now. We know what the revenue can be at this moment, but if that will be the same next year, it's difficult to promise them something. What do you think we should do? Because I've seen also some pilots where Dutch people were seduced to change their charging behavior and it was a cost price of $0.82 Dutch people are very cheap to seduce. That's a good lesson from this project. Is $0.82 per charging session enough? It's a bit funny. On the one side, it's not so much. At the same moment, people are willing to chase the behavior with just some small nudges. Yeah. Because they're very easy. Yeah. So, if it if it is foolproof, it doesn't affect your, your your behavior, then people are very much willing to to do something like that. And there's a couple of things that that need to be done, and need to be foolproof, and, it shouldn't interfere with with your regular, trips, for example, that you do with your car. Yeah. Tim, is this is the same for companies from your point of view? Or are your... Do they need something extra or are they already such a happy customers, that they're going in the right direction anyway? I I think they need to go into that direction if they want to charge, but but we also see the same as the consumer. We see a lot of, companies also who are, like, proactive, and and want to start with, like, smart energy, want to test, want to try different things out, and that... That's still, I think, necessary in this in this world. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just wondering, and you... Because in your setup that you've built, there's this time shifting element in it. Yeah. You're talking about consumer behavior. If I charge my car, I would like the the light going on and my car is charging. At at the moment, I connect it. Yeah. Did did you find solution for that in the specific setup? Yeah. We actually, when we first started with it, actually quite a lot of people came to us and sometimes a little bit angry, like, why is my car not charging? It's it's now 10:00 in the morning. I plugged it in at half past seven or half past eight and it's still, like, 1%. What's happening? At the end of... When they tried it a few times, they recognized, okay, at four or 05:00, my car is full. But what we also did at our own site is like put some stickers on on on the charger. It's kind of an easy solution. Then we say, like, this is this is this is this, pool is smart charging. Yeah. You you are full at the end of the day. So... That's absolutely good. Right? People learn to trust the outcome. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But that states all sides. Let's go to the results of the poll. I cannot see them here. Maybe someone can help me sharing the polling results. Yeah, they're here now. The user themselves, the question was, to recapture that who should manage the energy assets of households and businesses? The user themselves was one of the answers, and a combination was another answer. No one said the grid operator should do this. It's also interesting. So most people voted for the user themselves or a combination of energy supplier, user, grid operator, installer. Also no one voted for the installer, by the way. So a combination and the user themselves share us in the first place. Robert, can you recognize these results? That's an interesting result and it confirms, of course, what we what we think, how it should be. I don't... I'm not sure if everyone should be really be... Wants to be an active manager, but at least what we see is people want to be in control. So, the people that really want to manage everything, let's say the tweak us, that's like what I see from from our research is like maybe 15% of the users. They want to have control over all the settings and get the most out of it. But you also have a large group, I think, that, you can call them maybe the guided users. So you have to retake them by the hand, ask them some questions, and then do the setting and all set up for them. And then we have, of course, I think, large group and we haven't explored that. That's, in the group yet. But there's a lot of people that just want to plug it in, install it, plug it in, and forget about it. It brings everything for me as long as I get some reward from it. It's okay. It's like you see that with the... All the plug in batteries at the households where there's a dynamic tariff already in a battery. People plug it in and forget about it and they are happy to see the revenue every month. Who of you would like to manage themselves and who would love to be serviced? I would love to be serviced. Well, I I like to manage myself, but Yeah. For example, I currently live in an apartment. We don't have, like, a charger, where where we could place. So I think there are not a lot of houses in The Netherlands where you have your own solar panels, your own charger, your own drive through where you can park your electric car. I like it. Yeah. Your customers, what do they say? Do they want to do it themselves or do they say, please Tim, guide me? Depends, but I think most of them say guide me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You recognize that? Yeah. I recognize the... It's it's my work. So at work, I'm really busy with this topic, and at at home, it's totally your potential. Yeah. And because you're busy, you don't have time for all this stuff, and you have to keep your wife happy. Yeah. Yeah. I I actually installed a smart app for charging, so I would charge my car when when the solar was on. And then I I put on there, and my wife wants to charge the car. And then it charged right away, and she said, delete. Okay. Oh, well, get the app off the phone next year or the time. I tried it again. Yeah. So the home situation is different than the working, philosophy. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. It's essential for me to pretend this is just... It just needs to work. But I I would like transparency of how it works and then ideally outcomes. Right? So if I engage in this, what am I likely things to see? And then, I would be happy. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the objective of all. I was right to make people happy. Yeah. Okay. Let's go to the next round. What does it take to be... Make it the norm? All the innovative things we're discussing now. Tim, first to you. What do you see as the biggest obstacle at the moment to make it normal for every household and company to manage all these parts of the energy system? I think what we see, especially with with the companies, is technology like, tying all the components together. Some of our customers just say, make it work. I have, like, eight new electric trucks. Just make sure they charge. I don't get, like, a new grid connection, a larger grid connection, but just please make it work. Yeah. Yeah. I think sometimes they already have, like, solar installed from years ago. They have, like, AC chargers with with, which they also want to connect in their new energy system. They have some management energy manager in their office building and it's quite hard for us sometimes to tie everything together and make sure that the customer is happy and it works. It's easier to start from scratch. But that's with a lot of things, of course. But, yeah, it's not just charging you. You optimize their whole energy system, which also contains the, the building, the drive thru, everything. Yeah. And if you were allowed to make one wish for some other party that could help you, government, grid operators... Yeah. What what would be your wish? My wish would be, standardization. And I think, I think Arnold is working on that. But with regards to charging, we have like the OCPP, OCPI, like the communication protocols, which we standardized as The Netherlands after all those testing and failures. But yeah, I would love to see some standardization so that the communication, the hardware, and software can talk to each other and just work. Yeah. That's like everyone is agreeing on that. But there are some some some protocols. Right? There there there's... Yeah. Yeah. So, it's really like... It is the same issue as you had, I would say, with Charlie, but then to the next level because have all those different systems with all those different communication protocols. So it's just this one. But it's... I think the same issue, it can be solved in the same manner. So talk to each other, come up with the best solutions, make that standard. But it has an adoption curve and and and a test curve and a decision curve. So this is not... We don't have this tomorrow. Yeah. On our end, we see it's very urgent because we got that congestion in The Netherlands. So as as in The Netherlands or as Europe, we can say we can really make... Prioritize this. This is kind of instrumental to all the other things to keep businesses running because they have electricity etcetera etcetera, then maybe we can do this quicker than we did in the past with the charging. Yeah. And I was really, probably, in favor of that. I think it's really critical now to come. And if you were allowed to settle one wish to speed it up, what would be your wish? My wish is actually that... What I already mentioned in the beginning, there are now, I think, lots of small companies that that meanwhile have great ideas, but I would really like the the bigger companies with with their experience to join really this revolution of commerce protocols and really push them for that. And and to be honest, they don't have a history that they like their own protocols. Yeah. Because then it's right there, and it says, etcetera. So that would be really helpful because, yeah, you can reach that out. Yep. Yeah. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit more on the perspective of the ChargePoint operators and the, charge, service providers? Is... Their business is changing. Right? Yeah. But I mean, we have every type of charge points under the sun on the network. So it's... I think standardization that would really make it a lot easier for us to know which direction to develop. Right? So I'm fully on that. Do we see other changes for these companies, the ChargePoint operators and the service providers, by becoming part of the energy system? I mean, I think it will become more of the standard requirement in tender requests. Right? That is smart energy services. It's a must. So CPOs, need to make sure that they have the right products in place to be able to meet that. Because, it's not like we have more energy and less than more connectivity available everywhere in Netherlands now. It's just getting, it's going the wrong direction. And this... Yeah. So we need to make sure that we work with the right partners to have that available. Yeah. As I said earlier, because we still want to put ourselves in a position where the Dutch economy can grow. Right? And that means we need to make more with less. Yeah. You mentioned being part of tenders, etcetera, that's for the public charging points. Do you also see developments, for private or semi private charging points with the mods related to the energy system, or is it mainly focused on public infrastructure? Well, I think it's across the board. People... Like, for example, when we discuss scheduling, it's just cheaper. Right? So everyone just wants to operate with less cost. Right? So... Yeah. Does it make life more difficult for the CPOs and CSPs or or is this an opportunity? Both. Right. I mean, if you're a small park, party as for, like, small company, it's, being able to keep up with this is, means you probably will need to park a little more, specialists in order to do it. So, yeah, it's, living in interesting times. Yeah. What should they do from your point of view? Do you have any advice or recommendation for them? Call us. We can help. Call us. No. Okay. No. I mean, it's it's complex. So companies like us, we try to make it as easy as possible, no value the size of your business. Right. Yeah, just listen to talks like this. There's not good ideas out there. Robert, what would you advise them from a consumer perspective? Yeah. So to work on this, interoperability, that's really, I think, a critical thing. I just thought it... A bit of a nature food, when you are looking at, Internet of Things and, home... Smart homes, from fifteen years ago, for example, when you wanted to install smart lightning, or example, you really had to investigate what kind of protocol, what device with what protocol do I choose and what works with what. And then, came out of now. Welcome to IKEA UFO. A whole, a range of products that you can choose from. So, we should cut to that level to really win the majority of the people, joining this, I think. The other thing is, I I I called it foolproof, earlier, but we need... It needs to be very, free for people. So about one example I I see, for example, in in the smart charging algorithms and apps, it's like that you can set a minimum state of charge that you want to have always in your car. Like you mentioned, I think you arrive later on at your car. You see that it's still at 1%. If you ensure that whatever the the smart charting does, there's always... It always charges to a minimum of, like, say, 20% or something. Then you take away that worry from people, and then the smart charting is done with a range that you don't need. So I I truly believe that that is the way that we can win everyone in this, this, smart energy. Do you have any other advice for CSPs, CPOs to keep their customers happy? Reward them financially, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Give them a fair share or a good share of the rewards. So either more convenient or just, save money, make money. Right. Or both. Or both. Ideally, both. Yeah. Tim. Yeah. I would like to add... So we talk about, like really complex energy systems. Yeah. It's not only charging, but it's the whole side actually. And, the more complex complex it gets, the more collaboration between different parties needs to happen. So what we currently see is as a builder, we start to collaborate with different software companies and like in the past there was like not really a lot of collaboration between between the two of us. Different parties on the same site work on optimizing the energy site for the customer. Yeah. Collaborate. What do you do? Can you say a little bit more about the things you are doing with your company to make these alliances and partnerships? Yeah. We work from a building team. Before we start and sit with the client, we sit on the table like this with all the different entities together and we start with the goal. The goal is to optimize the energy system. For example, the goal is to get those eight electric new trucks charged while the grid connection is not, still the same? How can we do it and what needs to be done together? Sometimes it's adding some software components, sometimes it's adding hardware and tying it together with each other. But it starts more with like a building team with a different specialties together. Yeah. Thanks. We're getting to the closing rounds of the third part of the conversation by a last question for all of you. If you want to remark on this. What we see actually entering is all the cybersecurity challenge. Yeah. I would wish for is that we make it secure by design as we call it. Knowing that you are connecting more and more devices, locally and remotely, hopefully, you're adding risk also to the system. We know that they can design for it. So while designing those integrated systems, just be aware and make them sort of redundant so the consumer gets word reported in the end. If there are connection or no connection, they still can charge because that's... That can be technically organized. Yeah. I think also a lot of startups that tackle justice. Yeah. I think there's even been a big surge, but it's not gonna get, better. It's, as we see now with the AI developments, like this specifically with the PHP thing, that the whole world is suddenly, breaking up. So, yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. I've got a last question for all of you in this round. Maybe you can try to activate your inner, seer visionary. If you look ten years ahead, what will be normal then that is very new or not existing now and is normal in 2036? I think, for example, that that when you plug in your car, it doesn't immediately start charging. Because right now we just, we don't optimize for grid limits. We don't optimize for price, and the field like when with roaming charges for cell phones in the past, it will feel obvious that all of this needs to be orchestrated together. So actually, when I put in my card to charge, all I'd say, this is the point, my point of departure. And then with the time window available, it is optimized for available power, and price. Then maybe I have a say I need to be 80% charged. Right? Again, that time. And all of that, requires a lot of collaboration between parties to put that together. So I'm hoping that's in place within ten years. Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. That's your expectation. Yeah. Yes. What do you see in 2036? 2036. That is a low add. So, yeah, I I think most of these innovation go through, the the 50% that you mentioned that really want to tweak and learn and they are the first adapters of these early innovators that that use these technologies. I think that that's a great mechanism. Hopefully, by 2036, I think we also reached through that. The mainstream also people in in house corporates, stuff like that that also can can benefit from the value of these, these systems. And that they might need different kind of tool setups, have different desires than first movers. So, hopefully, by then, everybody's Yeah. Getting together. Tim, what do you think that's perfectly normal within ten years? I think within ten years, like, all our energy needs, whether you are consumer or an individual or a business, is being, done by, like, an proactive automated AI agent, for example, running digitally twenty four seven, looking at your agenda, looking at charging your car. It's just being done for us most of the time. Yep. Yeah. So looking at beta computer technology and how that has development and where we are now, for example, if you plug in your computer and the computer says that, for example, you have on your network also a smart TV and with some network storage, for example, I hope that this somehow gets at the at the state that, when you click in on the home battery that, your car also says, hey. I see a new device in your network or see new cap... Capabilities. Do you want me to, adjust your charging schedule or see that you have installed more solar panels? What does it mean for the production? Should we... Should I adjust something there? So there should also be some... In in it, some discovery protocol there and maybe an agent that sees this and suggests changes to your environment. You You don't have to tweak every individual component and have to think about how they communicate and how they affect each other. That's something that typically some AI or down systems should do. I guess moving away from the ChargePoint is essentially a fuel pump into it becoming actually an energy asset. That can be orchestrated with a 100,000 other charge points and all the other energy assets that's in the market. I think we could probably squeeze out a lot more value from the market, especially for the Dutch economy if we're able to do that. And then, yeah, AI will definitely be a part of that. It's too complex for one guy to sit there. It's nice here. And so... And do you... Maybe one of the other possible trends is, autonomous driving. And do you think that in 2036 we are still driving our own car or can we sleep, read, talk, watch a movie while being driven? I mean, we discussed that during the break. It would be great if that, as soon as my car is finished charging, it just kinda leaves the charge point and let's find someone else to park so that we can optimize the use for the charge points so that the charge points operators can actually get good... The value for money for each hardware installation so that it can charge less. Right? So I would like to see it. I don't know if you can do that in ten years. I know most of your... Yeah. You have any experience in these fields? Absolutely. Yeah. No. Yeah. I I... Yeah. I think that's... I think with all these things, and we... When they're new, we're starting in a kind of, absolute way. Everybody will be autonomous driving or not. And I think we will definitely be more autonomous driving than now. It's hard to say how much more. But I think these these... I I really love your example of these small autonomous actions. It doesn't need to be everything, driving everywhere. Most of them do this thing autonomous can really be something that's feasible, I think, in the in the... I think it's also interesting to look at people to home, as a solution. Obviously, we are at the bit of, we were waiting more or less for that solution to to happen. That makes very much sense. That is more or less what we're talking about. So if you... If things connected, it knows it's there. It can play a role. That's in other words saying, vehicle to home kind of solution, bring to the building kind of solution. And it makes really a lot of sense to use, our sources like that because cars are 92% standing still. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Being this kind of storage mechanism. Yeah. Do we need the amount of... For example, in about ten years when all the cars drive themselves, like we see now in America and I think in a few states, do we need the amount of cars we have today in The Netherlands with all the battery capacity we currently have, which is being charged every night? Maybe we can have, like, one fifth of of the amount of cars, especially since 92, 95% of the time, the car is just staying in front... In... At the drive thru or in the parking spot. So we'll see. And what would what would be, the effect on the energy system autonomous driving? Would it be possible to order your home battery in the form of a vehicle to home, EV? Or is there relevance for the energy system or is it mainly spatial planning and less parking spots? I think if you look at energy, we have to look at energy profiles and when it's in a grip on adjusted. We still have so much to learn in this respect. So it's it's really hard to predict, that one, I would say. To to name simple, like, thing is it makes makes a lot of sense to heat your home to third degrees where you're not out. My energy is free. But that's such a different way of looking at it. But cars probably look the same. Yeah. I think we also get a bit into a crystal ball. Yeah. It's difficult to, to either sustain. Ten years is is already a long time, three years from now. But, so it's difficult to to predict actually in the future. But I think, for example, if if if autonomous cars really become a thing, then, might have effect on the charging infrastructure as well because, it doesn't really make... Is it really convenient to have to plug in as alternative car, or does, an induction, charger as as as a better solution? What does that mean for, the charging infrastructure and now we're organizing? For example, we we now get questions from municipalities, that are reorganizing, the the streets or the whole area. And they ask us, okay, How... What what do we need to take into account? If if everyone is driving electric in ten years, shouldn't we have more, houses with their own driveway or at least the possibility to to charge your car, at the house and, with the cost, payment payment solution. That's... That looks like a good idea now. If cars are autonomous in ten years or twenty years, whatever, maybe you would then be enough for central charging up with, induction charges and the cars can code themselves at night. Card costs me off at home and then it just takes off. Right? Like like like I said, it's it's it's it's a bit crystal ball. Especially. Yeah. There's there's so many possibilities in result transition. Sure. Well, that was the purpose of the ten year visionary question. It also relates to some of the questions from the audience. One of the questions was about vehicle to grid, which we touched upon, but maybe you can elaborate a little bit more on that. What... What's the perspective for a vehicle to grid, vehicle to home, maybe vehicle to business, to help find solutions in these decentralized energy systems. Tim, for instance, do you already give us an active part in your projects, V2G? Not a lot actually. But I saw actually from the government, the Dutch government, that there was like an evolutionary report that in, I think, 2030, 2032, they want to have like 80% of all the charges being bidirectional, so they can charge and discharge. We can see it in in, Utrecht, where we're sitting today, actually that with the we drive solar, a lot of, yeah, they can distress the the city at, 06:00 in the evening, for example, when there's there's high stress on the on the energy grid. But but no, they're not not really for the the question we get. Pierre, I know a lot more solutions as part of the mermaid project in Utrecht with the v two gs with shared mobility. It's, what's your vision? It's a lot has to happen before that can be mainstream. Right? I mean, we believe in it. We see tier value in it. That's a highlight here also. The business case for a consumer is pretty strong in terms of just saving money from it. But, you know, I mean, with all the infrastructure, a lot of things have to be changed. Yeah. It's... I think it will take a few years. Yeah. And can you say, because the question is also about the role of the manufacturers, the car, OEMs. What's your perception of their role in this? Are they willing to cooperate? Some obviously are, but some are maybe reluctant. We have conversations with a few who are very open to the idea that that maybe the car helps orchestrate a lot of this. It's something. But I think it's... I think for a lot of producers, it feels like a kind of risky move. They don't wanna be the first mover. Right? So so we're gonna take... Need a few, brave parties to make the first steps. Yeah. I happen to live in Utrecht and I saw advertisements by Renault, which says, earn money earn money with your car. They don't have to work here. Yeah. So it looks, but I'm not sure. It looks like they are sharing the profits with the consumers. Yeah. So that was one of the question. What did what did you see, Robert? Yeah. So in terms of fake of credit, most of the questions that we got out of our help desk at the moment are not about create, not to home, actually. Like I said, people are, anticipating on the end of the net lead train here in January. So, that... That's one part, I think, why they ask these questions, the the the financial side of it. Secondly, I think it's also the romantic ID that you produce your own energy and use it, later on and you don't, you depend less on on on the network and the grid. And for free virtual grids, people are interested indeed if there is a fair share of financial reward for it. So I do believe it is as the future, and that every car and charger will be able to do it, in the future. But we still have a lot of people to win for just simple smart charging already, I think. And vehicle to home is certainly something that will pick up in the future. Thanks. Maybe one other question from the audience is about the role of local governments and permitting, for instance. Is there, well, a role to play for local governments in your view? Are they helpful? Are they active? Are they passive? What's what's your view on the local government? Or is it not so top of mind that's also an answer? It depends a little bit, on the local government. I think The Netherlands is quite specific. You've got four big cities that have a little bit more... I think that's one of them, a little bit more capabilities, money to experiment, to push, to pilot, which are very instrumental in implementing those things as we could tell with Greg. Yeah. So there's a reason it's it's happening to that. Yeah. So I I wouldn't say any local government, small town can be pivotal in in this transition. But these these before at least can, I think, or maybe maybe a little bit more? But I think it's also time that companies step in and and really... They're trying to to to gamble all the solutions and, and try to be a front runner. Yeah. And then again, come back to my, earlier statement that I see a lot of small companies daring and and a lot of bigger companies being from the... On charging side or from the building. Yeah. That's actually, I would say, the other big, part of it, the the building management systems that we can add, parking space in front of their, company to the system. Yeah. We're really ready for them to do that. I'm not sure if this is behind the question, but I also hear a lot of times that permitting procedures take a long, long time in The Netherlands, it's usually eight years of talking and one or two years of constructing. Tim, is that Yeah. That's... Your experience as well? Yeah. Especially when we look at charging, yes. But when we look at the whole energy system, for example, a business needs to add a battery, or add some PV, then the permitting is quite long. Yeah. That's where local government could be more helpful to speed things up. Yeah. I think one area where municipalities can play a role is that, well, I mean, technically it's out of their hands. Of course, the standards need to be there and, charging points from, January 1 need to be able to do a bigger to support bidirectional transfer. But, one area, municipalities do is informing, for example, homeowners associations about the possibilities to install chargers. You see several, cities in in The Netherlands I've been quite active in that. And there, of course, these questions will also come up. They also have limited grid capacities and batteries and smart charging and bidirectional charging can also play a role there. That should be part of the information package today provide to these associations, I think. Yeah. Thanks. Like in general, all the solutions are there, time is our only challenge, and we're also out of time for this session now. So I would really like to thank you a lot, Robert, Tim, Arnaut and Per. It was from my point of view, an excellent conversation. Thanks a lot for sharing all your insights. Thanks to the audience for watching. We've discussed a lot in these three episodes. You can all watch them back. The recording will be in your inbox tomorrow and will also be shared on social media. Please, if you can find the time for two minutes to fill in our short survey, it will be very welcome as on the panel on your right. And it helps us shape future sessions as well. Thanks again all for watching and being part of this conversation and hope to see you soon.