Energy Switch partners share their dreams

Partners and guests in the regional initiative discuss their ambitions for the energy transition and what first steps to take together for its realisation. 

An activity-filled afternoon marked the kick-off of the Energy Switch Zuid-Holland project on 10 March. The meeting offered partners in the initiative a chance to get to know each other and together find out what are their goals and next steps for the project.  For a quick summary of the day activities, watch the event video below.

Sharing experiences

Rob Mudde, Vice-Rector Magnificus extended a warm welcome to all and several partners – including representatives from the Economic Board Zuid-Holland, I-EM Delft and Talent voor Transitie – gave presentations on their organisations’ work, current projects and ambitions for the energy transition.

Following these talks, the partners got together in small groups to discuss their organisation’s participation in  Energy Switch,  what they had to offer to other organisations and what steps should be taken next in the project. The afternoon concluded with a tour of the host location – the Green Village, a site on the TU Delft campus dedicated to experiment with and learn about sustainable innovations.

Working together

One of the goals of the Energy Switch project is to facilitate cooperation between already existing projects. As Peter Smit from the Rotterdam Leerwerkakkoord said: “The next step is to get started. There are already many ongoing projects so how can we connect all of those? It is important to start accelerating the transition with each other and to learn from each other. We shouldn’t try to do all kinds of difficult things, but we should connect what already exists and use that to accelerate the energy transition.”

It is not just organisations that are needed for the energy transition but also extra people. During his presentation, Ferrie Förster from the Economic Board Zuid-Holland explained: “28,000 extra people are needed to be able to complete the energy transition, otherwise the Netherlands will not manage to do so.” 

Next steps

In the coming months Energy Switch will focus on getting multiple workgroups started. To begin with, a Communication workgroup will focus on getting the information about Energy Switch out and facilitating connections and information sharing amongst the partners. A Certification workgroup is going to work on creating an Energy Switch certification for educational institutes. Through this, the institutes will be able to show that courses in the field of energy transition comply with certain criteria. The third workgroup, Functions and Skills, will research what specific roles and competencies are going to be needed during the energy transition and where to find those.