Challenge

The Flemish Energy Company (VEB) wants to roll out a pilot project around small and medium-sized wind turbines on public land and/or buildings with the aim of gaining insight into the economic, technical and permit-related facets for this type of wind turbines, and the barriers that these wind turbines face, with the aim of finding solutions to these barriers and then being able to implement the wind turbines on a large scale in the short term, possibly via third-party financing, for the benefit of both public and private players.

In other words, the project wants to examine whether and how small and medium-sized wind turbines (KMWT) can contribute to the energy transition to a low-carbon Flanders. This is a relevant question and a major challenge because the efficiency of these wind turbines is limited, especially in certain locations.

Within the Flemish context, KMWT are turbines with a capacity of up to 300 kW or a mast height of up to about 50 metres. KMWT can be a possible alternative on sites where large wind turbines cannot be accommodated, among other reasons because of buildings.KMWT, like solar panels, are a decentralised form of energy production, meaning that the generated energy is produced and consumed locally. Thus, in addition to the wind potential, the consumption profile of the customer is also important. Given its complementarity with solar energy, KMWT can be both an attractive investment and a complement for making the energy consumption of companies, buildings, technical installations and public infrastructure more sustainable.  

Moreover, this project aims to achieve an off-grid system as opposed to current 'on-grid' or grid-connected systems. This is innovative and requires trial and research into the advantages versus disadvantages of off-grid systems in a densely built-up environment such as Flanders. VEB intends to eventually translate the 'lessons learned' from the pilot scheme into a framework agreement for similar solutions in the public sector.