Impressions

Symposium 2021 – Supplying the nation: the challenges of process electrification

In 2021 het Technologisch Gezelschap hosted a symposium about electrification of the industry. Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source.

The electrification of particular sectors of the economy is called by terms such as factory electrification or household electrification. It may also apply to changing industrial processes such as smelting, melting, separating or refining from coal or coke heating, or chemical processes to some type of electric process such as electric arc furnace, electric induction or resistance heating, or electrolysis or electrolytic separating.

Electrification was called “the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th Century” by the National Academy of Engineering.

The symposium took place the 4th of March 2021 in theater de Veste in Delft. Unfortunately, due to covid restrictions visitors were not allowed to attend the symposium, but attend the event online. Harm Edens opened the day with an introduction to the subject. Folloed was a lecture by Guido Frenke the chief operation officer (COO) of Engie. After the break Bernard Dam, an emiritus fro the faculty of Applied Sciences from the TU Delft and expert in the field of electrification, explained the state of research and advancements made. At the same time, a workshop was provided by Nobian to help students engage in a case study. Additionally, a company stand was present from Tejin Aramid, where studens could ask what it is like working at Nobian.

Later that day Egbert Klop from BlueTerra gave a lecture simultaneously with the online lecture of the deputy director for science and technology at the MIT Energy Initiative, Robert Stoner. Both were very well received lectures.

The day was closed by Marjan van Loon, the former president-director of Royal Dutch Shell. She told about the projects Shell is working on in the energy transition.