NEON: New Energy and mobility Outlook for the Netherlands

The transition to sustainable energy and mobility is not proceeding at the pace that is required. Technological development and economic incentives are not enough. Local conditions and users play an important role in this transition. The NEON program, a collaboration between Tilburg University and Eindhoven University of Technology, among others, focuses on innovative methods and techniques to accelerate the transition.

Tilburg University's social scientists work together with engineers, NGOs, and companies to overcome economic, legal, and social barriers to the deployment and upscaling of promising technologies in the area of sustainable energy generation and storage, smart grids, and electric transport.

Attention is paid to the following three problems:

Investments often do not go to the technologies with the greatest impact but to solutions that generate the fastest returns;
Promising solutions often run aground on the resistance of citizens or on institutional problems as soon as they are rolled out on a large scale;
Transition science currently lacks numerical models that can serve as a basis for practical climate and mobility policies.

A successful strategy to accelerate the energy transition

This strategy will have to focus on:

potential breakthrough technologies,
barriers at the system level,
quantified transition models.

The main social impact of the project lies in accelerating the energy and mobility transition in an economically attractive way. Not only realizing the transition in a cost-effective and affordable way (for both consumers and businesses) but also creating new business opportunities and technological leadership for the Netherlands are important drivers for the consortium. The expected economic impact for industrial stakeholders is particularly large in new markets as a result of the electrification of mobility and energy systems.

Work with us on this challenge

Companies or institutions that have cases or questions about the promotion of new technologies for the generation or storage of renewable energy, about smart grids, or about the integration of electric mobility in the energy system are encouraged to contact us.

Results

Within Neon, cost-effective, fair, and inclusive pathways to sustainable energy and mobility are being developed for businesses, policymakers, and citizens so that they know what they can do to realize these pathways.

Tilburg University's researchers look in particular at how principles of good governance, regulation techniques, and governance methods can contribute to accelerating the implementation of groundbreaking innovations in the field of production and storage of renewable energy, smart grids, and electric mobility. Researchers will effectively propose adaptations of European, national, and local laws and regulations to promote the innovations concerned, and how they can be implemented.