This research aims to design and analyse possible system configurations for a system in which wind energy from a Dutch wind farm, supplemented with electricity from the grid, is utilized to produce green hydrogen using an electrolyser, including options for transport of hydrogen to the consumer, and to perform an economic analysis on these system configurations. A design is made using MATLAB and Simulink software, for two system sizes; a 10 MW balance of plant system and a 1.4 MW balance of plant system. The design is made for two types of electrolysers, being an alkaline electrolyser and a PEM electrolyser. System configurations are modelled for operations on a minimum load utilizing all available wind energy, and for operations on nominal load continuously. It was found that the alkaline electrolyser is more energy-efficient and cost-efficient than the PEM electrolyser in this system. Including options for transport, it was found that the 10 MW hydrogen production system has the lowest levelized cost of hydrogen and is the most cost-efficient option. When operating on nominal load, the cost of hydrogen was slightly lower than when operating on minimum load using all available wind energy and restricting the use of grid electricity to a minimum. The cost of hydrogen was found to be sensitive to changes in the electricity price as well as changes in capital cost of the electrolyser. The most cost-effective hydrogen production, producing hydrogen at a cost of 2.95 euro per kg, was found to be the 10 MW alkaline system, operating at nominal load.

As the share of solar and wind in the energy mix increases, the inherent intermittency of these energy sources pose a great challenge for the Dutch power grid. The occurrence of problems with congestion and balancing power supply and demand are becoming more common. Companies in the Netherlands show potential to implement means for smart use of energy to alleviate these kind of problems. However, the gap between academic solutions and the industry is often too large. This research presents a method to find the optimal design of an integrated energy system in the Netherlands. A use case at Picnic is used to apply the proposed method. A flexible load scheduling optimisation algorithm is presented to explore the financial benefit of an integrated energy system that combines a photovoltaic system, an energy storage system, a cold storage system and a fleet of electric vehicles. The financial performance of different system designs are compared. Results show that the optimised load schedules for the EV fleet and CS system achieve a 2.6% decrease of energy costs with respect to the benchmark of Picnic. A PV system turns out to be beneficial for every size that the grid connection allows. This research finds 600 square meters to be optimal in the case of Picnic. An energy storage system would make optimised load schedules obsolete due to its flexibility. An energy storage system with a capacity of 250 kWh is found to be optimal according to the performance analysis. However, significant limitations in the assumptions of the storage system advise against installing it. Further research is required to elaborate the different elements in the proposed model. Different markets are suggested to use as a basis for load scheduling and a broader set of system designs is suggested to analyse their performance.

Implementing green alternatives in the heavy­-duty mobility market is required to reach the set climate goals of 2050 and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Refuelling infrastructures based on alternative fuels such as hydrogen are not sufficiently available. This poses a barrier to large scale implementation and investment in new emission­ free heavy-­duty fuel cell vehicles. Early market value chain configurations and low refuelling station demand levels are researched and evaluated to determine the optimal future strategy decision based on operational decision-making results. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) optimisation model is adopted to simulate a small scale hydrogen value chain dominated by hydrogen production directly from wind energy at the wind turbine location. Additionally, a method is proposed to define future demand for two separate end-­user categories at a hydrogen refuelling station. The spatial configuration of the researched infrastructure is based on a ”Hub” and ”Satellite” concept with distributed production locations and demand locations. With the current market pricing of all value chain components, cost parity with diesel fuel is reached if the total production capacity of the value chain is utilised. Future cost development will result in a lower total cost for hydrogen per kg than the diesel fuel equivalent. The hydrogen refuelling infrastructure based on wind energy is resilient against increased energy price fluctuations by an expected increase in the installed capacity of renewable energy sources. The operational decision ­making process regarding the hydrogen production process is generally independent of the distribution system size, spatial configuration, and type of non­-stationary storage container, taking into account similar demand within a specified time frame. The hydrogen infrastructure project of DUWAAL by HYGRO is used as a basis for the research.

Sales are the backbone for a company, sales forecasting plays an important role in organizational decision-making, and improving the sales forecasting performance has been an intention for managers. Sales forecasting is a management function that is affected by various organizational factors. The aim of this research is to validate a Sales Forecasting Management (SFM) framework to improve the sales forecasting performance in a high-tech industry and study the impact of forecasting on the organization’s business performance. The organizational factors such as sales compensation structure, product life-cycle stage of the company, information logistics, and cross-functional communication of the SFM framework are validated in the context of the high-tech industry. Further, the framework is quantified by developing an appropriate sales forecasting model. Both quantitative and qualitative forecasting methods are studied and the most appropriate technique with high accuracy is chosen. Finally, the effect of sales forecasting performance on a specific business outcome – End of Service Benefits (EOSB) is quantitatively measured. The EOSB is the gratuity payment received by the employees of the company when they are terminated or resigning from the job. It is a crucial operational expenditure that is proportional to the salaries earned by the sales employees and the accuracy in EOSB forecasts has an impact on the company’s stock price and investment decisions. The results of the research show that the accuracy in sales forecasts has a significant impact on the End of Service Benefits forecast. The research also finds that the SFM framework has to be adjusted to include the sales pipeline stages as an important organizational factor that influences sales forecasting management. Thus, the thesis provides an interesting insight to include the sales pipeline stages in the framework to improve the sales forecasting credibility. Finally, the SFM framework is evaluated, the impact of sales forecasting performance on a business outcome (EOSB) is quantitatively measured using a sales forecasting simulation model and the conclusions are derived.

The North Sea has significant potential in becoming a green energy hub, due to its remarkable offshore wind potential, and could therefore facilitate the energy transition to a net-zero energy system in Europe in the coming decades. In this transition, hydrogen is also predicted to play a key role, due to its ability to transport and store substantial amounts of energy. Previous studies have shown that for large offshore wind capacities and substantial distances from the shore, transporting the produced energy in the form of molecules (converting the electricity to hydrogen) via dedicated pipelines would be a more cost-effective option than using electricity cables and converting electricity to hydrogen. This transport could be achieved by developing new hydrogen-dedicated infrastructure or reusing existing natural gas pipelines, which is a cost-effective alternative. This research study aims to determine the potential for repurposing existing gas infrastructure in the North Sea for hydrogen transport, taking into consideration that this infrastructure will still have to transport natural gas to the shore over the coming years. Redirecting an amount of this natural gas to other, neighboring pipelines creates the possibility for existing pipelines to be freed up for hydrogen transportation, and therefore achieve parallel transmission of green hydrogen and natural gas from the Dutch North Sea to the shore. Consequently, the purpose of this thesis project is to examine the geographical, technical, and economic feasibility of large-scale green hydrogen transportation (produced offshore with green energy from wind turbines), with parallel natural gas transport, via new and already existing gas infrastructure in the North Sea, by 2030. The first aspect to be analyzed was the geographical configuration of such a system. For that purpose, different possible configurations for parallel transport of hydrogen and natural gas via existing North Sea infrastructure were examined. This analysis indicated that the most suitable scenario, considering the projected timeline and current circumstances, would be repurposing the NGT pipeline for 100% hydrogen transportation (produced from offshore wind search areas 7 and 3), and rerouting the natural gas to the NOGAT pipeline. Both NGT and NOGAT pipelines are parts of the North Sea offshore pipeline system, currently transporting natural gas to the Dutch shore. The next part of the study concerned the physical configuration of the hydrogen transportation system. A component analysis was done, highlighting the most suitable components across the entire system configuration, including the offshore hydrogen production by water electrolysis, its compression, and its transportation via the NGT pipeline among others. Furthermore, a more elaborate analysis was done to determine the project’s technical feasibility, with emphasis being placed on the key aspects of hydrogen compression and transportation, evaluating its flow characteristics and compression requirements. The analysis results showed that transporting hydrogen via the NGT pipeline to the Dutch shore is technically feasible. Based on the analyzed scenario, the maximum hydrogen transport capacity was found to be 7.9 GW, and the total compression capacity 103 MW. During its transportation along the length of the pipeline (253 km), hydrogen experiences a pressure drop of 10.4 bar (65 bar to 55 bar). An economic evaluation of the system was also performed, indicating that the project is feasible from a financial standpoint as well. The LCOH transport for the proposed system, including hydrogen compression and NGT pipeline repurposing costs, was found to be 0.17 €/kg/1000km. The overall conclusion of this study is that reusing existing infrastructure in the North Sea for hydrogen transportation is a physically and technically feasible option, which can be achieved at a competitive cost.

Digitalization is revolutionizing the way organizations manage their internal operations. Many of them are still characterized by waste and inefficiencies, however, innovative digital tools are already changing the way large corporations operate in a variety of sectors. One of the fields that still have room for improvement is product data management (PDM) in the consumer goods industry. Supply chain partners spend huge amount of resources in just fixing manual errors and adapting large data formats. There is not enough standardization in the way product data is exchanged among entities. Inter-organizational information systems (IOS), and more specifically the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN), represent the most promising digital tool towards leaner PDM processes. IOSs are computer-based information systems that extend beyond the borders of one organization. They provide automated information exchange to support linked business processes among two or more organizations. The GDSN is a specific IOS for product data management that extends to all the supply chain partners that are exchanging product data, mainly suppliers and retailers. This system can have a big impact in PDM process, potentially reducing errors and inefficiencies to zero. This research aims at addressing the preconditions that are needed to successfully implement this system in a supply chain network. There is evidence that this critical phase can often be underestimated by supply chain professionals. Many FMCG organization have not been able to implement the system despite of the benefits that would bring to the network. A case study is the research methodology used to gather primary data. Other sources such as scientific articles and consulting reports are used to gather secondary data. Henkel and its retailers in the Netherlands and Belgium is the supply chain network used in this case study. The research is performed using an adapted IOS adoption framework. The IOS framework from Pang & Bunker is adapted with the particular characteristics of the GDSN in order to be able to analyze the case using this stand-alone framework. This methodology proves the reliability and validity of the research, as it is founded in a scientific framework. The new research framework is used in the case study to identify the preconditions that play a fundamental role in the success of the project. Finally the critical success factors are outlined, discussed and validated.

In order to fight climate change, the EU is providing funds for knowledge development on water electrolysis technologies. Numerous projects have been funded so far, and an EU wide water electrolysis network has been formed, however, from an RTOs perspective, there is no overview of knowledge development and knowledge diffusion regarding the European Green hydrogen technological innovation system. In this thesis, we have used the CORDIS database to develop a social network model of all the water electrolysis projects funded by the EU, alongside we performed interviews with central European RTOs and reviewed project reports to analyze knowledge development and diffusion. We have summarized the key areas for knowledge development in PEM, SOE and Alkaline networks and we have also found certain issues related to knowledge development and diffusion within the green hydrogen network. Given these issues, we finally proposed recommendation for RTOs and the EU in order to improve knowledge development and diffusion.

The European Green Deal states that it wants to develop 40 GW of electrolyzer capacity by 2030 in North Africa to combat climate change. Using PV power as the primary energy source, a system is designed that can produce green hydrogen and ammonia to investigate how the location and the capacity of the components can be optimized to produce at the lowest possible levelized costs. This way the competitiveness of green hydrogen and ammonia can be examined against hydrogen and ammonia produced using fossil fuels. Incorporating batteries for electricity storage, a salt cavern for hydrogen storage and cryogenic tanks for nitrogen storage, the system is designed to work as flexible as possible to cope with the variations in PV output. Scaled to an industrial scale output of 200.000 ton-NH3 per year, the resulting LCOH in 2030 will be 1.63 €/kg-H2, and the LCOA will be 0.394 €/kg-NH3. The competitiveness with fossil fuel-based production is dependent on the price of natural gas, which in this case will need to be higher than 3.16 $/MBTu or 12.25 €/MWh (converted using a USD/EUR rate of 0.88 and a conversion factor of 0.29308 MWh/MBTU, and taking into account a carbon price of 100 €/ton-CO2-eq) for green hydrogen to be competitive. For green ammonia to be cheaper, the gas price must be greater than 4.49 $/MBTu or 17.41 €/MWh. A sensitivity analysis shows that if the CAPEX and OPEX cost of the five most contributing components to the levelized cost would be 50% higher, the LCOH (2.4770 €/kg-H2) and LCOA (0.5817 €/kg-NH3) would still compare favourably to blue hydrogen and ammonia with a natural gas price of 7.71 $/MBTu (29.89 €/MWh) and 9.04 $/MBTu (35.05 €/MWh). By analyzing the operations of the salt cavern, it is discovered that 6.4% of the salt cavern is used from the available capacity of 3300 ton-H2. Even when the necessary yearly output of ammonia is raised 2 or 4 times, the salt cavern uses only 12.7% and 16.8% of the available capacity. Overall this research shows that green hydrogen and ammonia can compete with hydrogen and ammonia produced from fossil fuels in 2030 and that the possibilities of salt cavern storage for hydrogen are greater than expected because a capacity of 250 ton-H2 is enough for a yearly production of 200.000 ton NH3.

This project investigates the feasibility of hydrogen refueling stations using photovoltaic systems for fuel cell scooters. The aim was to identify the solar electricity generation potential of noise barriers in the Netherlands and the connection between this and future theoretical hydrogen demand for fuel cell powered two wheelers (scooters or mopeds). Noise barriers block noise from inhabited areas, which is also where mopeds and their owners reside. Noise barriers retrofitted with solar panels, or Energy Walls, coupled with a hydrogen production, storage and dispensing system is proposed. This system would enhance sustainable, carbon neutral mobility as well as contribute renewable energy to the grid electricity mix. Particulate matter, greenhouse gases and noise pollution are reduced with electric drive vehicles such as fuel cell powered two wheelers. A case study of a noise barrier on the A20 in Rotterdam Noord was modeled; other suitable locations were identified as well, such as Amsterdam or Delft. The characteristics of the barrier in Rotterdam provided a lower levelized cost of PV electricity and was thus chosen to simulate specifically. A range of electrolyzer capacities was also simulated to understand the effect of the electrolyzer capacity and the final cost of hydrogen to the user. The demand base case was 100 scooters which traveled 2.5 km/day each on average. Provided a single metal hydride canister has a range of 25 km and capacity of 45 gH2 , this demand configuration means 0.45 kgH2/day needs to be produced for the users. An hourly simulation of the energy production was modeled using two control strategies, which focused on maximizing the Energy Wall input and the use of the electrolyzer respectively. The second strategy had higher electricity costs as compared to the first, however the cost of the electrolyzer was minimal regardless of the number of panels. The cost of hydrogen depends on the size of the Energy Wall and the electrolyzer capacity; for the lowest cost setup the price of hydrogen ranged between 14.3 and 7.2 EURO/kgH2 . The cost per kilometer traveled by fuel cell scooters was found to be between 2.57 and 1.4 ¢/km. Battery electric vehicles are still much cheaper to operate in this aspect, driving at a cost mileage of between 0.3 and 0.6 ¢/km, however gas powered scooters had the highest cost per kilometer (3 - 5¢/km). This model finds that the operational costs of a hydrogen fuel cell scooter are lower than its gas scooter counterpart, but not low enough to compete with battery powered scooters. The one advantage of gas scooters is the range on one refuel, however with their relatively high operational costs and emissions, electric drive engines become favorable. Battery electric have a good cost efficiency. Fuel cell scooters are quickly recharged with canisters, and are mid-cost range to operate compared to the other two technologies.

Large-scale infrastructure projects such as ports can have a significant impact on the development of nearby cities. While economic benefits of the port spill over to other regions, often internationally operating firms, port-cities experience negative externalities like environmental and land use issues and traffic congestion. Traditional port impact studies are expensive, and offer a static picture that doesn’t take into account the complex adaptive nature of the port-city system. There is a need for a comprehensive dynamic model of port-city development, incorporating beneficial and negative externalities of port infrastructure development on the city and peri-urban green space. A system dynamics modelling study is performed using the case study of Tema and its port on the Gulf of Guinea in Ghana, to evaluate interventions for sustainable port-city development in an African context. A model is conceptualized and specified, based on Forrester’s Urban Dynamics model, fit to cope with relative scarcity of available data. It incorporates and explicitly models road transport congestion, informal settlement and green space encroachment, as well as port infrastructure. Model testing and use show that the model is fit for the purpose of exploring the long term impacts of port infrastructure investments on the port-city system. Interventions aiming at sustainable development are simulated and evaluated for their performance. Recommendations regarding interventions and the potential future use of the model with stakeholders are made.

As heating forms a large share of the primary energy consumption in the Netherlands, district heating networks are regarded as an effective means to address the emissions- and renewable energy targets. In the Province of Zuid-Holland, the aim is to construct a large-scale regional open heat network that should create a more sustainable built environment. Since open heat networks are a novel phenomenon, challenges arise that relate to the organisation of this market, how heat should be priced and more specifically how to deal with the unique characteristics of transmission losses with heat. In this thesis, evaluate several conventional pricing mechanisms are evaluated and an alternative pricing mechanism including a transmission loss allocation method is developed by means of an algorithm, to investigate if it improves the market performance. This alternative pricing mechanism succeeds in allocating the transmission losses to loads on the basis of fairness, but overall fails to improve the wholesale market performance compared to other pricing mechanisms. The allocation method can be improved, depending on the desirable market outcomes, by adapting several assumptions and procedures in the algorithm.

This research has compared three different market mechanisms in a quantitative way. The influences of these market mechanisms on the heating system were investigated for CO2 emissions, consumer price and producer surplus. In addition, the influences of investment decisions and price and consumption growth scenarios were tested. The research showed that the end-to-end market mechanism is the least uncertain in the future and is only influenced by consumption growth. In addition, the construction of a large source of residual heat can moderate this effect. The wholesale market is strongly influenced by price scenarios. This effect can be moderated by the construction of the pipeline through the Midden, which connects two different heating systems. Finally, there is the single buyer market. This is influenced by both scenario variables, while no investment decisions affect it. Further research must be done into the latter market mechanism. And the models need to be extended to more specific markets because this research has used archetypes. Keywords: District heating network, Market mechanism, Single-buyer,

Biofuels are inextricably bound up with policy. Various drivers can be identified for the production and consumption of biofuels, such as environmental considerations, energy security and economic development. Therefore, biofuels may be an appealing option to policy makers. Biofuels are in general more expensive to produce than their fossil counterparts. Therefore, (support) policy is necessary to increase the competitiveness of biofuels. Policy makers can implement various measures to realize the potential benefits of biofuels, such as import- and export tariffs, imposing trade embargoes, offering subsidies, mandating blending targets and creating tax exemptions. However, the biofuel market is an international affair, because demand and supply of feedstock and biofuel are unequally distributed around the globe. In the past it appeared that domestic biofuel policies could have major unforeseen and unintended effects on the international bioenergy markets. The influence of policy measures on the global bioenergy markets is not extensively investigated. Lamers et al. [2011] found that trade volumes were largely influenced by import duties, whereas trade routes were mainly driven by tariff preferences. In other words, it is found that there is some interaction between policies and patterns of international trade flows (in terms of volumes and routes) of biofuels and feedstock. However, the study performed by Lamers et al. [2011] did not explain the underlying mechanism. The aim of this research is to fill this knowledge gap. With this knowledge, decision making by policy makers may become better informed and aforementioned effects of policies may be reduced or even prevented. The main research question addressed in this research is: Which mechanism can explain the effect of policies on emerging patterns in the international trade flows of liquid biofuels and feedstock? To answer this question, an agent-based model (ABM) of the international liquid biofuel markets is developed. If literature on international trade flows for bioenergy is reviewed, it appears that the models applied are usually general- or partial equilibrium models. Contrary to equilibrium models, ABM allows for heterogeneous actors with bounded rationality, the ability to learn and intrinsic behavioural traits. Above that, geographical aspects can be incorporated. It is hypothesized that these factors play an important role in international bioenergy trade. Therefore, this approach could be of added value to the current strand of literature in which equilibrium models are applied. To limit the scope of this research, a case study is performed. In this case study a number of key players in the international biodiesel market are considered: the European Union, Indonesia and Malaysia. Since the take-off of the biodiesel industry (around the year 2000), the European Union has been one of the largest producers and consumers of biodiesel in the world. In addition, the European biodiesel market has been targeted as an export market for biodiesel and feedstock (palm oil) by Indonesia and Malaysia. In view of the case study, the focus of this research is on first-generation liquid biofuels.

Due to automation and robotization of material handling systems (MHS) in the transportation industry, maintaining equipment and systems becomes more important, and needs to be integrated in the company’s business strategy (Tsang, 2002). Implementing and investing in the right maintenance approach to keep these systems in optimum state is therefore essential for the performance of a company and more important, for the customer’s satisfaction. When a company has to deal with an increase in failures and decreasing performance, it needs to anticipate to change this negative trend. In literature, most of these problems are analysed by using electronic data and condition-based monitoring (Bouvard, Artus, Bérenguer, & Cocquempot, 2011). Analysing the condition of equipment requires data monitoring which is not always possible. Besides, these analyses are often based on a single system which conditions do not apply on systems with different specifications. TNT Express (initiator of this research) is dealing with this problem within the Benelux. They are dealing with decreasing on-time delivery (OTD) performance and increasing costs of smaller sorting-sites without technicians. Having high OTD performance is an essential element of TNT’s business strategy, and is a competitive advantage in their industry. Their time-critical processes combined with the interrelated network structure of their sites makes it hard to develop a single strategy or solution that positively affects the performance of all sites. The differences in size, work methods, level of technology, different size of freight and fluctuating demands makes it a dynamic and complex environment with a lot of variables that influence the performance of on-time delivery. That makes it hard to identify the causes and effects of these failures over time. Besides, TNT doesn’t have the useful data to base their maintenance on. Therefore, finding the bottlenecks and the right variables that influence this performance most is essential for decreasing the costs of TNT. Therefore, the objective of this research is: “Identify the constraints of TNT’s Material Handling Systems in a dynamic environment, to be able to apply the right maintenance strategy that preserves TNT’s delivery performance at lower cost.” Before a start could be made on finding the bottlenecks of the sorting sites, TNT’s maintenance structure, operational structure, financial structure and operational structure needed to be defined. TNT’s sorting operation, where freight is unloaded, sorted, measures and loaded, runs around 19 hours a day, 6 days a week all year long. That limits the time for maintenance and check-ups to 6 hours a day. Still, a fast response is needed when the sorter does fail during operation, to prevent the process getting delayed which generates extra costs. TNT’s maintenance of those sites turned out to be depending on mostly corrective maintenance, and less on preventive and predictive maintenance. Mechanics are traveling from site to site to solve current incidents that cause delays, and less for preventive maintenance and check-ups. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are also responsible for some maintenance activities, although these are mostly time-based and less used for trouble shooting. When specifying TNT’s on-time delivery performance, the performance of the sorting sites turned out to be the most important factor of the OTD. This sorting site performance is measured by the capacity of freight it theoretically can handle, and the amount of freight it is transporting in reality. This site performance is also influenced by several variables, where the Material Handling Systems availability turned out to be the largest influential variable. The failing devices and equipment are the cause that IV operators on the floor have to sort manually, which takes a lot more time. Besides, these delays are generating extra costs, only how much and which costs is not quite clear. TNT’s limited registration of essential elements like downtime, maintenance costs and OEM activities made it difficult to link these elements, and to find possible bottlenecks. So, to be able to link the MHS- downtime with the related costs on a daily basis, three Critical-to-Quality factors (CTQs) are analysed:  Breakdown costs  Maintenance costs  MHS availability Because the financial impact of a breakdown was not yet specified, the most important factors are determined by interviewing business improvement experts. Some costs turned out to be different for the import or export process during a working day. For TNT, the next financial factors turned out to be important: 1. Missed Check-Weight-Cube (CWC) revenue 2. Hiring extra vans and trucks 3. Personnel costs (overtime) 4. Financial consequences of lower service level (loss of customers) From these factors, the missed CWC revenue turned out to be largest costs factor in the import process, where hiring extra trucks and vans turned out to be the largest costs factor of the export process. These two factors are further specified and calculated, to link them to specific breakdowns. Depending on the volume in different locations, the missed CWC revenue is variating between €000,- and €000,- for a single shift per day. These costs are calculated by determining the number of packages that are affected by a breakdown and do not get a second weighing check on a next location, multiplied by the average revenue missed per parcel. These calculations showed that without a working sorter or CWC on a single location comes with large financial consequences. These specific insights in CWC revenue loss show the need for fewer failures to improve the financial performance of TNT by changing the maintenance activities. The extra costs of hiring extra vans to transport all freight towards the customers in the export process turned out to be €000,- for a single shift (1day). These costs are in the same order as the CWC revenue losses, and from financial perspective just as bad. The cost analysis regarding this data showed how disperse the information is within TNT, and that it is hard to develop a strategy without this kind of crucial information. Maintenance costs are referred as costs that are made to solve the incidents and include, service contracts, mechanics salaries etc. However, costs that are made for decreasing the number of incidents are more important. Think of hiring extra employees, changing service contracts, training current employees. Quantifying these costs is only possible when the bottlenecks of the breakdowns have been derived. V The lacking quality of the data regarding downtime and availability of the MHS made it impossible to use mathematical solutions to find the bottlenecks, so “Soft Operations Research” methods have been used to find the causes of the failures (Heyer, 2004; Masys, 2015). Using Pareto charts and Ishikawa diagrams on the incident file controlled by TNT’s mechanics, the data in this file is structured and enriched to find failures with recurring root causes that are a structural problem. First, three devices that have the most impact on the MHS availability are determined. These are the Sorter, Roller track/belts and Check- Weigh-Cube (CWC) and are responsible for 130 of the 210 incidents for the first 5 months in 2017, which represents more than 60% of all incidents of the MHS. The registered incident data of these three devices is enriched by going a step further in the cause, structuring all data, and visualising them in an Ishikawa diagram. By doing so, it became clear that a high number of incidents (35%) have an operation cause, which means that they are caused by human error. These incidents are not specifically location bounded, and solving the most frequent occurring incidents will prevent a lot of future incidents. The three selected root causes that are responsible for most incidents are: 1. Lack of system knowledge Operators, especially Team Leaders (TL) and Leading Hands (LH), have too little knowledge of the process, the effects of failures and simple technical solutions. There skills haven’t been developed with the increasing mechanisation. Not knowing the impact of failures, and how simple incidents can be prevented leads to unnecessary failures. 2. Sensor related incidents A large part of those operational incidents are sensor related. Because these incidents are still frequently occurring, they need to be handled separately. These incidents can be solved quite easy most of the times, and a support system to help operators to solve them is very helpful. 3. Lack of working according instructions A large part of the incidents are caused by wrong choices of operators, by putting wrong parcels on the sorter, putting them on the sorter at the wrong place or working not according the given instructions. The lack of knowing the consequences results in an uninterested work attitude which results in a performance decrease of the sorting site. For these three root causes, several improvements have been developed. For the first root cause, a training program is recommended which start with a well-communicated plan to create the urge for change. The current attitude of personnel is asking for a plan that provides support from the whole organisation. TNT needs to know the value of knowledge amongst their employees, and this needs support from top management. Combining this with low-technical training sessions and useful supporting tools will increase the employees’ knowledge, and also creates ownership with the employees. To do so, TNT needs to review its distribution between part-time employees from employment agencies, and employees contracted by TNT. Increasing system knowledge amongst employees is only effective if that knowledge stays within the company. Rewarding well performing VI employees with a contract by TNT will have positive effect on the knowledge on the work floor and not only prevents, but also decreases the amount of downtime. For sensor related incidents, a supporting manual has been developed that functions as a simple flow chart that guides TL through the process of solving these failures. Following these steps in the included manual gives simple but clear instructions how to act and what to do. Before using this supporting manual, the TL need sufficient training before they can execute the process. Although this solution is more focussed on corrective maintenance, this manual helps to solve simple incidents that mechanics do not have to solve by themselves. Not only are these incidents solved much quicker, due to direct handling of the TL, but the mechanics do not have to drive towards the location of the incident. That also gives the mechanics more time to do preventive maintenance tasks, and therefore further decrease the number of incidents of the MHS. This manual strengthens the need for more direct or autonomous maintenance within the sorting sites of TNT (Chen, 2013). Currently, these sites are too depended on the knowledge of external maintenance providers to repair the failures which is not desirable. To improve that employees work more according instructions, better supervision is advised and recommendations are made to reward well-performing operators. Rewarding operators also means that they will be more responsible for their colleagues and have to make sure that they understand the instructions. They become responsible for preventing wrong parcels being put on the sorter, and have to correct their employees if they ignore the instructions because a lot of incidents are caused by wrong packages being put on the sorter. However, TNT should also improve the visibility and clarity of these instructions by using dummy parcels to indicate the allowed parcels sizes. Improving this product flow on the sorter will improve the sorters performance and lowers the number of incidents. The effect of these improvement could only be expressed by a decrease on the number of incidents, and not on downtime due to lacking data registration. If, as a starting point, already half of these structural incidents is solved by these improvements, the total amount of these 210 incidents over 2017 would already decrease with 13%. Due to the unknown length of the breakdowns, they cannot be compared to financial results although these results definitely improve. All these improvements are based on autonomous maintenance which is focussed on letting operators do more maintenance and technical tasks. Finally, all these improvements will help retaining TNT’s on-time delivery and decrease their breakdown costs. This process of finding these bottlenecks led to an even more valuable advice for gathering data. This research showed that TNT needs to improve their data collection system, and document important factors with a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) like time registration, downtime during operations, and weight of breakdown. This data also needs to be accessible for OEM’s, so they also have insight in the failures, and can help improve the MHS performance. With this data, TNT can measure the downtime and better monitor its MHS availability to see which devices or incidents need further improvement. The importance of such data collection system is once emphasized by the fact that it was hard to determine the bottlenecks, especially with multiple locations at the sorting locations of TNT. VII The goal was to identify the constraints in a dynamic environment that has a lot of influential factors that make it hard to determine the effects of these variables. Using multiple techniques based on the number of incidents and the failure history, the first bottlenecks could be derived that needed improvement. Together with a costs analysis on the most important financial factors, solutions and recommendations are developed that will retain TNT’s on-time delivery at lower costs. However, the recommendations for a more centralized data-based maintenance system could even be more valuable in the future.

Accurately forecasting charging demand is a major factor in energy providers’ ability to meet said demand. A number of methods have been proposed in the literature. This master thesis aims to provide a framework for energy providers to forecast charging demand due to increased EV adoption. Specifically, this research examines the effects that rental EV adoption has on charging demand at Icelandic energy provider ON Power’s fast charging stations. Further, it establishes how increased technological developments and infrastructure spending can be balanced to avoid unnecessary costs, and if ON Power’s charging infrastructure is prepared to meet the electricity demand that a fully electrified rental car fleet would bring. To answer these questions, an agent-based modeling framework was constructed to simulate charging demand in ON Power’s network. The model simulates all tourists that use rental cars in driving the Icelandic ring road as if the entire fleet consisted of EVs. A case study is conducted where the Icelandic ring road is split into nine zones, and six scenarios that each reflect different technological developments are simulated using the modeling framework. The research findings indicate a significant change in charging demand. Firstly, rental EVs affect seasonal charging demand with more than half of the demand occurring in the summer months of June-August. Secondly, geographical charging demand shifts from mostly being in the greater capital area, to mostly being outside of it. Thirdly, a sufficient charging infrastructure at Keflavík Airport is a major factor in the electrification of the Icelandic rental car fleet. The research findings further indicate that with the right strategy, it is well within reach for ON Power to handle the rental EV charging demand. A strategy is proposed for ON power to avoid unnecessary spending while still meeting charging demand, which considers current demand, future demand, and how new charging station locations should be determined.

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) could turn an electric vehicle (EV) into a potential source of flexibility, in order to deal with the variability and uncertainty in electricity supply brought about by renewable energy sources and the load increase caused by the adoption of EVs. However, only a few studies have focussed on the complexity of EV drivers’ motivations towards V2G contracts. The main objective of this research was to address this lack of empirical evidence in the V2G literature by conducting a stated choice experiment among Dutch EV drivers’ to obtain their preferences regarding participating in V2G contracts with an aggregator, an intermediary party that would bundle the batteries of the EVs virtually. These preferences were measured from the perspectives of both current and increased recharging speeds of EVs. Therefore, the impact of an increased recharging speed on the potential success of V2G was also measured. In particular, the effect of an increased recharging speed on the guaranteed minimum battery level, one of the contract attributes used in both former as well as in this research, was quantified. A total of 1,332 choice observations was gathered and used to estimate an Multinomial Logit (MNL) model. The results showed that Dutch EV drivers based their decisions to choose for a particular V2G contract on a required plug-in time, a financial compensation, a number of discharging cycles and a guaranteed minimum battery level. However, the relative importance of these contract attributes depended on the recharging speed of the EVs. In fact, Dutch EV drivers valued the guaranteed minimum battery level half as important within the context of a fast recharging speed, relative to recharging speed of their current EVs. The results are compared to the few previously conducted stated choice experiment on V2G contracts, indicating that the demanded financial compensation for the significant contract attributes seems to decrease.

In a world where companies rely increasingly on machines and automated production lines to deliver customer value, asset availability is a becoming a larger driver of companies’ productivity and thus performance. In effect, where maintenance was historically perceived as a cost-centre, it is generally treated as a value-adding business element that must be effectively managed today. However, the increased use of machines and automation has also resulted in an increasing portfolio of assets, often with a highly complex nature. Coupling the growing portfolio of complex assets with factors such as maintenance being a cross-functional activity, stricter HSE requirements, a stochastic maintenance demand, maintenance management complexity has also increased drastically. The result is a reality where maintenance is, on the one hand, becoming more critical to companies’ performance. Simultaneously, it is also a large and growing source of operational issues and costs that is highly challenging to improve. This thesis project is conducted for a consulting firm specialised in helping customers realise benefits. Prior to this thesis, they had access to a highly successful way of managing maintenance developed and applied in the industry by a second company. This maintenance management approach is called The Maintenance Wheel. It has realised benefits in the magnitude of roughly 10 M EUR per year in combined savings from two large-scale facilities. Moreover, it contributed to a significant increase in maintenance quality. In effect, this maintenance management approach provides a way to cope with the increased maintenance complexity, with massive empirical benefits. Seeing this, the consulting firm has attempted to help customers with ineffective and inefficient maintenance operations realise benefits through The Maintenance Wheel. However, they have struggled to convince their customers to implement it, seeing that the customers struggle to understand the management approach. As senior managers considering The Maintenance Wheel will perceive it as an innovation, Karabin is struggling with an innovation diffusion barrier, caused by a failure to transfer knowledge on how The Maintenance Wheel works effectively. The management approach was developed internally by the second company, without considering diffusion. Consequently, there existed no conceptual description of the management approach prior to this thesis. Seeing this, the thesis project research objective was to design an MMF aimed communicating how The Maintenance Wheel works to help cope with the knowledge-based diffusion barrier. Note that an MMF is a theoretical framework explaining an approach to managing maintenance. This MMF effectively provides knowledge on how The Maintenance Wheel work, and was constructed with a design science research methodology. The evaluation indicated that the constructed MMF sufficiently communicates how The Maintenance Wheel works. After a brief presentation for senior managers with no prior knowledge of how The Maintenance Wheel worked, it was possible to have in-depth discussions. Thus, the knowledge-based diffusion barrier caused by customers’ senior managers not understanding the management approach should be solved. Nevertheless, the evaluation also showed that one particular area of future development is required. The senior managers interviewed requested examples of how the framework work in practice. In effect, to help more effectively transfer knowledge on how The Maintenance Wheel works, the consulting firm should provide practical examples of the different elements of the framework.

Vehicle-2-Home (V2H) is a concept in which an electric vehicle (EV) is able to charge and discharge its battery pack to the building it is connected to. This concept enables EVs to store surplus solar energy, which is produced during the daytime and return in to buildings during the night time. For this system to work (cost) efficiently, the EVs location during the day must match the location of surplus solar energy. Also, at night, the EVs must discharge this electricity evenly over an area to reduce the strain on the electricity distribution grid. This thesis has analysed whether there exists a match between the spatial distribution of solar panels and EVs in the Amsterdam region under growth scenarios until 2040.

The Sines H2 Hub aims to take advantage of Portugal’s solar resources and push for a green hydrogen hub centred in Sines. To do so, a 1GW electrolyser is expected to be built by 2030. The gas produced, which will have the same production profile as the solar irradiance, can be injected in the gas grid, distributed by truck or shipped to the Netherlands. Due to hydrogen’s high volumetric energy density, ammonia is considered a suitable energy carrier for the ship­ping option. However, ammonia production requires a stable hydrogen supply ­ which is not compatible with a profile dependant on solar irradiance. To face this issue, a technological option that stands out is using the existing Carriço salt caverns, located 280km north of Sines and connected by pipeline, as a buffer to store the hydrogen during the day and supply it back to Sines at night. This research aims to calculate the levelized cost of hydrogen transmission by pipeline from Sines to Carriço, storage in the Carriço salt caverns and transmission back to Sines. Based on the stabilized hydrogen production, a model is developed and 4 pathways are considered for each of the possible infrastructure combinations: new or retrofitted transmis­sion and new or retrofitted storage. Dependant on the infrastructure selected, the cost model developed found a total levelized cost of hydrogen transmission and storage of: 0.17­-0.25 [€ ⋅ kg(H2)−1]. By considering a competitive green hydrogen production cost of 1­-1.5[€ ⋅ kg(H2)−1], the transmission & storage costs along with the rest of the direct hydrogen supply, will translate into an added 10% expense ­ on top of production ­ to provide a stable hydrogen supply to the ammonia plant. The result, which is aligned with literature, is expected to provide solid input in assessing hydrogen’s price competitiveness and contribute to the decision process of using retrofitted or new infrastructure.

The Dutch Government is picking up the pace in the energy transition. However, the expansion of wind generation is facing congestion challenges, and the decarbonization of household heating and agricultural mobility proves that electrification is not always an option. These challenges occur together in rural areas like Oudeschip. Hydrogen has emerged as a possible solution to the encountered problems. By producing hydrogen from the wind power and transporting the hydrogen through the natural gas infrastructure, household heating can be decarbonized without electrification. Furthermore, by converting the tractors of the local farmers to diesel-hydrogen hybrids, they can reduce their emissions. This research approaches the energy system of Oudeschip as a socio-technical system, and tackles the challenges in different sectors in an integrated manner.