Simone Kranendonk: “At the ETCA campus, we have everything we need to make a real impact on the energy transition”

It is only just over a year since the former Shell Technology Centre Amsterdam transformed into the Energy Transition Campus Amsterdam (ETCA). For decades, Shell professionals have worked here on new technology development and energy solutions, and today is no different, only with an updated approach.

Shell created the Energy Transition Campus Amsterdam with the belief that no company can make the transition to cleaner energy alone, the reason why collaboration is key.

At the official opening event in June 2022, ETCA kicked off the campus concept with the impressive announcement of 14 innovative companies stepping in as so-called ‘ETCA members’: all eager to find synergies in an open innovation campus. Since then, the number of ETCA members has only grown.

With her background in political science, Kranendonk knows what it takes to break through traditional barriers and get to decision making. In her role, she works together with the different companies, Shell R&D groups, and local partners. As an experienced facilitator in diverse environments, she brings challenges to the table effectively - leading to new opportunities for all parties involved. Simone puts everything aside to confidently set up a successful campus community platform whose key factors for success, she believes, are already in place.

“Our campus, located at the Northern banks of the Amsterdam IJ River, offers a state-of-the-art sustainable 90,000m2 building,” Kranendonk says. “A little less than 25,000m2 is with fully equipped lab facilities with the right permits. The remainder a modern conference center, other common areas and office floors designed to facilitate inspiring cocreation sessions. I believe this, together with the unique combination of companies, with their bright minds and capabilities, can really accelerate the energy transition. This is the place where you can test game-changing ideas and scale solutions from lab to market.”

Now, after one year, the campus has no less than 24 logos on its membership wall, the community is clustered around six core technological themes, and the seventh, digitalization, is the strong enabler in all these themes.

The community platform Kranendonk is building in ETCA gives all members opportunities to deep-dive and find synergies in their areas of work. “In the sessions, we identify gaps and opportunities in technology development, and we explore where the ETCA ecosystem can play a role in the solution.” Kranendonk says she really enjoys working along with Shell colleagues Rishabh and Alexander and with the enthusiastic group of digital innovators in the ETCA ecosystem, who are also present at the 2023 Future Digital Twin event.

Do you want to know more about our ETCA digital cluster capabilities or Digital Twin Solutions? Please reach out to Rishabh Chopra (ETCA Innovation & Partnerships Lead) and Alexander Gorlov (Digital Twin Innovation Lead) info@ energytransitioncampus.com facilitate more streamlined scope 1-3 emissions management,” Kranendonk explains. “This integration of two key capabilities has been developed here in recent months, because of lowkey connects on a shared office wing.

The common goal of accelerating the energy transition, feels very powerful in this ecosystem. It makes me proud to be able to contribute to new collaborative projects that would probably not have happened otherwise.”

For the near future, Kranendonk will keep driving collaborations at the same pace as she did the past year. “It is good to see that the teams’ efforts pay off and I am proud of the used cases with impact we can present to you today as a group,” Kranendonk concludes.

“The campus environment feels very dynamic with this unique mix of start-ups, scale-ups and leading companies,” Kranendonk adds. “By bringing all these professionals together under one roof, we can already see that we have the essential knowledge needed to accelerate the transition to cleaner energy. The next step is to leverage our capabilities to bridge the gap not only for our own companies, but also for each other. We have everything in-house to make a real impact on the energy transition together.”

Kranendonk indicates that the enthusiasm and drive to explore together in the digitalization cluster translates into an opportunity funnel with projects in energy management systems, dynamic grid connections, robotics, and hydrogen pay-peruse solutions.

The office wing that accommodates ETCA’s ten digital members has an open collaboration space used for cluster meetings, brainstorms, and external business meetings. “It’s great to see how this already resulted in one of the best examples with impact: by bringing together Kongsberg Digital and Streamba under one roof, they started a close collaboration connecting their asset and supply chain digital twin solutions to

Together with the members, ETCA laid a foundation for success. For the coming years, the ecosystem aims to make a tangible impact on the local environment and will demonstrate its capabilities as one campus to the Energy Transition.

Do you have a challenge to solve, and do you want to become part of this unique initiative in the industry? Or interested in joining? Reach out to us via e-mail or follow us on LinkedIn, where we promise to keep you posted.