On Wednesday, June 20, Juva Energy Support presented its annual figures during the annual shareholders' meeting. A net profit of 14.6 million euros was achieved in 2017. Furthermore, the annual report revealed a large amount of electricity from CHPs still being fed into the high-voltage grid, while increasingly more lighting is being applied. In 2017, on the other hand, a decline in the feed-in was noticed.
Juva is the parent company of Westland Infra Netbeheer (transport and connection services), Capturam (innovation and energy transition) and Anexo (measurement company and infra-related services).
Electricity increase
In 2017 an increase of 2.8% was recorded from 1,632 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2016 to 1,678 GWh in 2017. The redelivery of electricity to the high-voltage grid increased by 26.7%. "Combined heat and power units have been used more often for own use, particularly for lighting, but the improved market conditions for CHP also led to more feed-in to the electricity grid during the utilization of heat or CO2 from the CHP."
According to Westland Infra, this is a remarkable development, because “the volume growth in the electricity transported to end customers was related to the decrease in electricity redelivered to the power grid. This is caused by the additionally installed assimilation lighting at the horticulture companies."
The increase in redelivery to the high-voltage grid was achieved despite a slight decrease in the installed capacity of CHPs in the Westland. "The installed capacity in 2017 amounted to 770 megawatts. This indicates that there certainly still is a role for the CHP in greenhouse horticulture."
Feed-in peak
The highest feed-in peak in 2017 was 413 megawatts. In 2016 this was 351 megawatts, while the highest feed-in peak of 531 megawatts was recorded in 2010. The peaks are declining further under the influence of falling electricity prices.
The changing peaks are in line with the changed use of cogeneration. Since 2010, the supply capacity has increased. In 2010, it was 222 megawatts, while 2010 was a top year. In 2017, a maximum supply capacity of 342 megawatts was reached (2016: 327 megawatts), mainly due to growth in assimilation lighting.
Fall of gas
Network manager Westland Infra transported 1,178 million cubic meters of gas in 2017 against 1,139 million cubic meters in 2016. In the long term, grid operator Westland Infra expects a reduction in gas transport. With the current development in the field of geothermal energy, about 5 petajoules of renewable heat should be available by 2020. This represents 25% of the heat requirement of the Westland greenhouse horticulture sector.
View the full annual report here in Dutch.