De Hoge Rielen is a residential area for young people – and anyone with a youthful spirit – that creates space for accommodation, adventure and tranquility in a green environment of 230 hectares. The non-profit organisation General Office for Youth Tourism (ADJ) manages it on behalf of the Flemish government. There are various buildings and warehouses spread across the green domain. Many buildings have been renovated, but a number of sheds date from the time when this was a military domain.

Looking at the big picture

De Hoge Rielen wanted to partly demolish, partly renovate 4 buildings and also make them fossil-free. Because from now on not only heat pumps will be used and the demand for electricity – due to more electrical appliances and the need for charging infrastructure for bicycles – is also increasing, the electricity supply turned out to be insufficient and the Flemish Government came knocking on Ingenium's door.

However, opting for fossil-free implies that the demand for electricity will also increase in the rest of the domain in the future, so we decided to immediately look beyond the initial demand and make the overall picture. We made an inventory of the technical installations for all buildings – including for heating and domestic hot water – and mapped out the needs for an upgrade to fossil-free, both per building and for the entire site. Typical of the electrical facilities in the Hoge Rielen is that many buildings are linked to each other. We mapped out and unraveled this organically grown 'tangle'.

Loop avoids expensive cables

A first point of attention was the high voltage. Our analysis showed that there was still a lot of margin on the transformers in the available cabins, to which a number of buildings are connected each time. However, long distances had to be covered to reach all the buildings from there, and with increasing consumption, much thicker (and more expensive) cables have to be installed along the way because of the voltage drop.

We proposed to lay a high-voltage network over the entire site, with a high-voltage loop around the domain, and sufficient surplus capacity for the future. The total number of high-voltage cabins will be 3 new to 6 and 2 existing but outdated cabins will be thoroughly addressed. In the part of the domain furthest from the main entrance, electricity was not yet available. The cabling is now provided there, but not yet connected, until it is needed in the future. In addition, we also provide the low-voltage cables from the high-voltage cabins to the buildings, and we provide a thorough update of outdated general low-voltage switchboards.

Cost-efficient working

By zooming out from the customer's original request and alternatively preparing the entire site for a fossil-free future, we made a more sustainable choice. In doing so, we also look at cost price optimizations. For example, the choice to expand the high-voltage grid and the number of cabins turned out to be 40 percent cheaper than the initial idea of keeping the current cabins and implementing the network in low voltage.

Electrification is underestimated

We see more and more that clients are won over to a fossil-free future in the field of heating and the electrification of mobility, but do not always take into account that their electrical network is not equipped for this at all today. Ingenium has the expertise and experience to carry out this upgrade in a future-oriented way, with a logical phasing over time – among other things so as not to jeopardise the continuity of the use of the site – and cost-efficiently.

We start from a master plan – the total picture – and can also engineer the installations. Once in use, we collect measurement data so that we can not only monitor progress against the baseline measurement, but also collect data to optimize the operation of the installations in the future by means of commissioning.

Want to know more about how Ingenium can upgrade your electrical system to make your site fossil-free? Contact Joris Dedecker at 050 40 45 30 or joris.dedecker@ingenium.be.

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