Grid congestion is a huge bottleneck in making the Port of Amsterdam more sustainable as our energy infrastructure is under pressure. Upgrading the grid would take years and is very expensive. For companies planning to expand, modernize, or even establish their facilities in the Amsterdam area, the electricity grid is a serious limitation.
The Fritzy & friends initiative targets the optimization of energy generation and use at the local level. Fritzy & friends aim to balance supply and demand automatically so as to ensure the security of energy. Parties, or even devices trade automatically, while the common group interest of securing the energy supply is guaranteed by all parties involved.
The aim is not only to significantly reduce costs but also to increase energy safety and infrastructure efficiency.
Together with partner companies Technolution and OneUp, we are convinced that the energy market model needs to change in order to make the energy transition possible. In Prodock, Port of Amsterdam’s innovation hub, a futuristic model for the energy market has been developed and piloted on a smart refrigerator called “Fritzy”. Fritzy also has friends, namely “Batty” the battery, “Sunny” the solar panels, and “Netty” the grid. Each of these market parties will have their own behavior (AI) and based on their predicted consumption they make their own bids to trade energy with the network. By means of a decentralized blockchain exchange (0x.org) bids are matched and settled. The local grid in Prodock (Netty) has a technical maximum for the available power and just like your normal fuse box at home, the main fuse could be cut off if more power is drawn.
The Fritzy & Friends project tests whether a decentralized automated energy marketplace is superior to current centralized marketplaces. Fritzy & Friends has been developed as open-source and open-interface software to drive and promote scalability.