The countries of the European Community strongly support the growth of renewable energy sources for better environmental protection, for sustainable energy supply through saving fossil primary energy and to lower the dependency on imports of primary energy. In the next years more and more Gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar energy will be fed into the electricity networks. Today’s networks are not dimensioned for this. Furthermore, a large number of small power producers in the household and the charging of millions of electro-mobiles pose new challenges for the electricity networks.

Marco C. Janssen was one of the invited speakers at the 2012 Curaçao Conference/Expo on the future of Durable Energy which took place from 29 to 31 March, 2012 in Curaçao. He gave a speech on Smart Grids and showed the audience definitions and possible practical approaches that Curaçao could take to implement Durable Energy in a Smart Way.

This conference was part of an educational and awareness program that is based on the Electricity Policy titled: “Bill on Regulation of Electricity Provision Curaçao 2011-2015” that was establish by the government of Curacao on February 16th, 2011. This plan contains the vision and a policy proposal of the government concerning the electricity supply on the island. On November 16th, 2011 the Council of Ministers established the “Bill on Small Scale Sustainable Electricity Provision”, and on November 23th, 2011 feed-in tariffs were established for sustainable electricity produced by households and businesses. Based on this the government of Curaçao is pushing for the rapid implementation of Durable Energy on the island.