Sustainable during Rotterdam elections

The problem

In a free country like the Netherlands, there is little as important as democratic elections. In order to realize this, quite a few things have to be arranged, for example sufficient voting locations. During 5 days of voting, polling stations must be supplied with the necessary energy. Sustainable energy is a growing topic every year, especially in politics. The City of Rotterdam is therefore looking for a sustainable way to provide all voting locations during the 2022 municipal elections with energy.

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The objective

The main objective is to generate all energy sustainably while making it financially viable for the municipality. In cooperation with Volta Energy, the municipality of Rotterdam chose sustainable power from the sun. Normally, the municipality uses a diesel generator at this type of location. During the five voting days, a Volta Energy 15 kVa solar generator was used at two locations to provide power at the polling station.

The challenge

Due to the corona virus, the municipality of Rotterdam chose to open additional voting locations in the city. At such an improvised location, however, a power supply is of course needed, if only to turn on the lights. Normally a conventional diesel generator would have been chosen for this purpose, but of course it can be much cleaner, quieter and more sustainable. In the city it is inconvenient if a generator makes a lot of noise and at the same time causes pollution through the use of diesel. A solution to this, however, must of course also be financially feasible. In cooperation with Volta Energy, we therefore looked at the best way to provide two additional voting locations with sustainable energy.

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The results

Unfortunately, the number of solar hours was disappointing, but even so, 9 kWh of renewable electricity was generated through the PV panels during this period. In addition, it still required 21.6 liters of diesel to cover the entire consumption, significantly less than a conventional diesel generator that consumes as much as 204 liters of diesel over the same period. Thanks to the combination of the PV panels with the available battery, as much as 76% of running time was saved on the genset. In addition to 182 liters of diesel, a saving of over 650 kg in CO2 emissions and almost 1 kg in NOx emissions was thus realized.

Due to the higher rental price than a conventional genset and the disappointing weather, the Solar Genset in this case turned out to be €1.66 more expensive over the entire period than a conventional genset. On the total cost, however, that is of course a minimal difference. This makes it very financially justifiable to choose a sustainable and green solution. Moreover, over a longer period than 5 days or slightly more sunshine, the solar aggregate is undoubtedly cheaper, so we hope to be back at the next elections as well!

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