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Cybercriminals don’t simply buy their technology off the shelf

The fear that cybercriminals can easily purchase the technical capabilities they need on underground marketplaces is unfounded

Flocc: Connecting people to their smart office

The office building is transforming from a static piece of concrete towards a flexible shell with internet connected infrastructure, called smart buildings. This shift is also reflected in the way that people work; from individual work in a fixed office space, towards collaborative project work in which people find their flexible desk every day. As delightful as it sounds, a downside is that people can have a hard time coping with this flexibility. To always know where you can find the people you work with, and to have a strong sense of community is essential for every employee. The result of this graduation project, Flocc, is meant to create a feeling of belonging to the temporary workplace. Flocc builds upon Mapiq, which is a software platform for smart buildings. Mapiq integrates all of the sensors and services of a modern flex work office in one UI. Flocc is an exploration of how to bring the interface of a smart building platform into the physical realm. Graduation project Student Jip Eilbracht Coaches Elif Özcan Catelijne van Middelkoop Sander Schutte The design is based on a generative system that creates unique visual and auditory patterns for every project team. These identities are embedded in various ways throughout the office building, allowing employees to locate their project teams in a flex work office. At the same time the sense of community is strengthened by giving people a fixed reference in an ever-changing office environment. 3 Prototypes were made to show how the team identities can be utilized. First, an interactive lobby floor shows a collection of visual patterns and shows the direction towards each team. Afterwards, the patterns are projected in the ceiling above the workplaces for reference. Additionally the team identities are shown in Mapiq's smartphone app for detailed information. Flocc shows what can happen when technology celebrates the ambiguity of the way humans work in and interact with their physical environments. Previous project Overview of projects Next project

A Design Game for Families

Star Designer is a design game for families, in which players explore the essential 21st century skills creative thinking, communication, and empathy through an open and creative mindset. During the game, different characters drop by with all kinds of problems. All players are asked to come up with handy but sometimes crazy or foolish solutions. The game consists of three phases. First, together you determine the goal/problem of a character. Then, all players invent an idea based on their secret assignment card, using their individual drawing boards to visualize their ideas. Finally, you present your idea to the group by explaining how it works and how it helps the character. However, this game is not about having the best idea it is about guessing the secret assignments of your fellow players. Graduation project Student Wouter van Strien Coaches Rudolf Wormgoor Mathieu Gielen The result of this graduation project has taken the first steps in making children acquainted with the 21st century skills in a safe and competitive game environment. The key insights gathered through the playtesting sessions with families show a positive relationship between the embedded game elements and a fun-factor. The highest empathic behaviour has been detected when players define a goal/problem for an in-game character themselves. Also, recognizable characters have the potential to make children think of someone from their own environment, such as a grandmother, making their ideas more personal and diverse. Furthermore, the secret assignment cards with ambiguous words are found to encourage kids to turn their first idea into something different (divergent thinking). This project might be of great interest for other game designers and design education in general. The central aim has been to explore the potential of a family-friendly design game that engages kids to learn and practice the essential 21st century skills by embracing an open and creative attitude. Further research should investigate if repeatedly playing this game increases learning efficiency of the 21st century skills. Previous project Overview of projects Next project

Rational Override; Influencing behaviour beyond nudging

Service designers and organizations increasingly want to understand and change customer behaviour. They struggle however to create durable change, as behavior is complex, dynamic and very often not rational. Knowledge from behavioural sciences can provide designers with the ability to more fundamentally understand and change customer behaviour. For this graduation project, a qualitative and exploratory research was conducted to develop a design approach and toolkit that supports service designers to create behavioural interventions across customer journeys. In an attempt to influence customer behaviour, service designers have increasingly experimented with nudges: Simple, unconscious interventions that facilitate unconscious decision making. Although nudges have been proven to be very effective, they are not always scalable, sustainable or suitable to apply in a service context. The exploratory research shows that endured behaviour change requires customers to be in the right mindset at the right time. Service designers should thus not only facilitate automatic and fast thinking but also stimulate people to switch to more deliberate and conscious thinking when necessary. Graduation project Student Anne van Lieren Coaches Jan Schoormans Giulia Calabretta Lavrans Løvlie This research introduces a new design approach, in which two types of behavioural interventions (nudges and rational overrides) are combined across a customer journey to either speed up or slow down the user's momentum. The interventions do not only facilitate automatic and fast thinking but can switch customers to the conscious state. People can be prompted to switch by implementing micro moments of friction, also referred to as rational override interventions. A service design toolkit, consisting of five templates, two card sets and two databases, was designed to support designers, organizations and stakeholders to understand and design behavioural interventions. The toolkit enables designers to create tailor-made solutions that fits both the customer, business and organization. Previous project Overview of projects Next project

Detecting Malnutrition in East-Africa

In collaboration with Philips, the student team Levo Design developed the concept of a product that applies 3D scanning technology to enable low educated people to do a reliable, accurate, comfortable, and rapid assessment to indicate all three types of malnutrition. The product and workflow designed allows Community Health Volunteers in East Africa to indicate malnutrition amongst children of 0-5 years old. The design facilitates the access to health coverage across countries like Kenya, where health facilities are located more than 5km away from the communities they should attend. The project was divided into four different phases. In the first phase, a brief analysis was conducted on the strategic side of the product, on Kenya and its culture, on the current procedures and on the possibilities and limitations of 3D scanning for the context and application chosen. To come to a concept that is suitable for the context, the potential users in Kenya were directly involved in the design process during multiple co-creation sessions. Joint master project Student Alaitz Izaguirre Astrid van Smoorenburg Inge Bartels Elisa Mesland Coaches Annemiek van Boeijen Jan Carel Diehl Pavan Dadlani Nies Buning Company Philips The final concept consists of several solutions. A device with an integrated 3D scanner to take different measurements like malnutrition, dehydration and temperature. Furthermore, a vest and a tray, to position the child while making the scan since the positioning is fundamental to the accuracy of the measurement. The vest is a people-oriented solution, for the child is carried by the mother. In this way, they are close together, making it comfortable and familiar for both of them. The tray is the technology oriented solution. The children are most restricted in their movements improving the accuracy of the measurement. A cultural element was taken into account when designing the tray, a Kanga is a piece of decorated thin cotton cloth used among other things to carry babies strapped to the back by Kenyan women. Previous project Overview of projects

Computer Aided Consumer Design

The consumer market shows a growing heterogeneity in demand. This means that consumers are more and more looking for custom and unique products. As a reaction, companies developed a new strategy called Mass-Customization which revolves around offering products that are developed and produced custom to user specific needs. Via online tool-kits consumers can personally customize the products they buy by choosing colours, materials and combining building blocks. The goal of this project is to take this principle of Mass-Customization to the next level by enabling consumers to customize the physical shape of products themselves. The means to reach this goal is Algorithms Aided Design. Algorithms Aided Design makes use of algorithms to generate and control Computer Aided Design (CAD) geometry. Its parametric nature enables to generate a variety of product shapes. It also enables the creation of design complexity that exceeds human capabilities. Graduation project Student Olmo Meijs Coaches Stefan van de Geer Sebastiaan van den Elshout The developments of Algorithms Aided Design introduce a new form of Mass-Customization: Computer Aided Consumer Design which enables the laymen consumer to design their own products by letting them modify CAD models directly. This way consumers can modify the physical shape of products they buy. I designed and developed an algorithm for Bende, a small Rotterdam based company of creators, designers and makers, that produces a variety of tables. By changing parameters millions of different table designs can be created serving multiple functions from small coffee tables to large dining tables. The table is designed to be fully manufactured out of CNC routed sheet material. Each unique design will be produced, flat packed and delivered to the consumer who assembles the table himself. Previous project Overview of projects Next project

Lavoro: Discussion Tool

For the Design Strategy Project in de SPD master, a collaboration strategy had to be designed for Vanderlande, a logistics and parcel company. Right now in Vanderlande there are several challenges regarding collaboration among divisions: There is a difference of expectation of employees that work in different department in Vanderlande Different departments make use of different design processes and do not understand each other Vanderlande has a very complex IT landscape, which results in limited IT understanding and little to no documentation So things need to change in the future in order to achieve better results and solve the problems stated above. To do so, the way of sharing information needs to change. When this is achieved it will save time in documenting and give structure to the workflow. Furthermore, trust is an important topic when collaborating. When there is trust, it will nurture collaboration. For trusting one another, people need to be able to learn how to share insights, concerns and expectations. Student project Student Tea Todorovic Sophie Krah Rose Tsai Nien-Hua Gu Coach Katinka Bergema For this Lavoro has been designed. The Lavoro package consists out of two different elements. The first element is the Lavoro online system, the second element is the Lavoro discussion tool. Both elements complement each other and will be distributed at the same time. With the Lavoro Package, the acquired company [MdK1]and Vanderlande have the opportunity to improve their collaboration and communication. The Lavoro system helps in coordinating a certain project because of milestones that are assigned to employees. An employee can only continue with new tasks if previous milestones have been completed in the right way. The Lavoro discussion tool helps employees with communicating and making project expectation explicit. Therefore, the slogan of Lavoro: Collaborate, Communicate, Coordinate. This proposal for Vanderlande reduces the complexity of the organisation and its IT landscape, since it has all the functions that are needed for a good collaboration in one package. Previous project Overview of projects Next project

Estimating the safety factor of monsoon-affected urban drainage systems using fault tree analysis

By Florida Visser, supervised by Martine Rutten Many cities in South-East Asia increasingly face flooding problems that frequently inundate large parts of the city. The main cause is twofold: these cities are often affected by monsoons, and rapid urbanization quickly alters the runoff generation. Drainage systems can often not keep up with the changes and start to fail. There are many different failure mechanisms that cause failure in different parts the system. These mechanisms are often known to local experts and maintenance workers and are treated one by one. The mutual relationships of the causes of failure are easily overlooked in this way. For this research, the capitol of Vietnam, Hanoi, is taken as a case study. This city has grown from 1.7 to 7 million inhabitants in the last 2 decades. During the monsoon season, heavy rains occur and can inundate certain locations multiple times per year. This research aims to provide a more formal approach to the conditionality of the failure mechanisms: in what way do failure mechanisms relate to each other? This is done by means of fault tree analysis (FTA). This method connects the different mechanisms using the failure probability of each specific failure mechanism and connects them using Boolean logic. The methodology is carried out in two main steps. First, the fault tree is drawn using the input of local experts. Interviews and a focus group are held with inhabitants of Hanoi that come from different disciplines, such that their experience is represented in a formal way. Second, a normative neighborhood of Hanoi is modelled using PCSWMM software. This software combines the tools of the well-known drainage modelling software SWMM and e.g. QGIS. Additionally, the software enables the user to execute the scripting tool. This allows me to perform Monte Carlo simulations, such that the relevant uncertainties can be estimated. In this way, the sensitivity to certain failure mechanisms is explored, and the failure probability of these mechanisms can be predicted using characteristic values and ranges. The formal approach of FTA provides a clear and quick overview of the vulnerable parts of the system, and their relative contributions to the inundation problems. The result of this study can be used for local drainage authorities, such that they can make more targeted improvements.

Adaptation pathways to prevent dry periods in De Dommel

by A.J. van Osnabrugge, supervised by O.A.C. Hoes and J.S. Timmermans With climate change the weather is changing in the Netherlands. In the last century the summers have become drier and the rain pattern has changed to shorter but more intense rainfalls, resulting in longer dry periods (KNMI, 1980, 2019). The Dutch infrastructure for waterways has been designed to direct the water as quickly as possible towards the sea because there was sufficient water available and the country would otherwise be prone to flooding (Arcgis, 2021). But due to the changing weather agriculture, nature, industry and the population of the Netherlands suffer from a shortage of water during summer times (Rijkswaterstaat). The higher parts of the Netherlands, which often consist of sandy soils and thick sandy aquifers, suffer even more resulting in water restrictions for agriculture (Rijkswaterstaat). Also at Waterboard ‘De Dommel’ They face these problems. This can be harmful for agricultural yields, but is necessary for nature and drinking water companies. During high intensity summer storms water is quickly diverted to the bigger channels, not recharging the groundwater level. A transition from diverting access water towards retaining and infiltrating this access water is therefore necessary. It is needed to insure sufficient water in future summers. This research is about the possibility to prevent water shortage during the summer months in two different areas in ‘waterschap’ (waterboard) de Dommel, Brabant. Due to climate change this has become an issue in these areas. With a groundwater model different adaptation paths will be tested. The adaptation paths will be combinations of different interventions come up by the water board and other experts. The XLRM framework will be used to define when an adaptation path is ‘working’ or not. Some future scenarios will be modelled in the groundwater model to test if the adaptation paths will also ‘work’ in more extreme or other future scenarios. In the end, the difference in the results of the groundwater behaviour, due to the adaptation paths, in both areas will be compared.

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What trees teach us about sustainable production of materials

Trees are excellent teachers when it comes to making materials for load-bearing structures with as little resources and energy as possible. One of their secrets? When a tree grows, the direction of the wood grain adapts itself to fit the load that part of the tree is going to bear.

Exhale Sluitingsweek: A week of free events to say goodbye to Exhale and cosy up for Winter

De allerlaatste Exhale Week vindt plaats van 25 november tot 1 december en staat volledig in het teken van afscheid nemen van Exhale en het omarmen van de winter.

TIL student Laura Drechsel wins Q-Park thesis award

TIL student Laura Drechsel wins the 2024 Q-Park Student Award with her thesis called: Stories of Aging and Access - Exploring capabilities and challenges of accessibility for urban elderly through microstories. Her award-winning thesis can be found here .

Moving the Closet

You simply cannot miss it, it is big and magenta: the Pink Closet . On 12 November 2024 the Pink Closet will head to the Main Hall of the TU Delft Library for the first time! The Pink Closet will take its place at the Nook, where it will feature as part of the Studium Generale programme on loneliness. More information on events that coincide with and incorporate the Pink Closet at TU Delft Library will soon be available on the website of Studium Generale .

Green ammonia remains a challenge, but researchers make significant progress

The production of ammonia, essential for fertiliser production, is responsible for almost 1.5% of global carbon emissions. This needs to be greener, which is why researchers have been looking for sustainable alternatives for years.

"Measuring brain activity through the skull with ultrasound opens new doors"

PhD Candidate Rick Waasdorp is looking for ways to correct the distortion caused by the skull when using Ultrasound technology. ‘’My goal is to develop an adaptive method for skull corrections that automatically measures the skull of new patients.’’

NWO funding for flexible power demand in electrically driven industry

NWO is funding two projects to explore ways to make the power demand of industry more flexible, allowing it to better align with future energy supplies. One of these projects, “DEFLAME,” is led by Machteld van den Broek from TU Delft.

Students Amos Yusuf, Mick Dam & Bas Brouwer winners of Mekel Prize 2024

Master students Amos Yusuf, from the ME faculty (Mick Dam, from the EEMCS faculty and graduate Bas Brouwer have won the Mekel Prize 2024 for the best extra scientific activity at TU Delft: the development of an initiative that brings master students into the classroom teaching sciences to the younger generations. The prize was ceremonially awarded by prof Tim van den Hagen on 13 November after the Van Hasselt Lecture at the Prinsenhof, Delft. They received a statue of Professor Jan Mekel and 1.500,- to spend on their project. Insights into climate change are being openly doubted. Funding for important educational efforts and research are being withdrawn. Short clips – so called “reels” – on Youtube and TikTok threaten to simplify complex political and social problems. AI fakes befuddle what is true and what is not. The voices of science that contribute to those discussion with modesty, careful argument and scepticism, are drowned in noise. This poses a threat for universities like TU Delft, who strive to increase student numbers, who benefit from diverse student populations and aim to pass on their knowledge and scientific virtues to the next generation. It is, therefore, alarming that student enrolments to Bachelor and Master Programs at TU Delft have declined in the past year. Students in front of the class The project is aimed to make the sciences more appealing to the next generation. They have identified the problem that students tend miss out on the opportunity of entering a higher education trajectory in the Beta sciences – because they have a wrong picture of such education. In their mind, they depict it as boring and dry. In his pilot lecture at the Stanislas VMBO in Delft, Amos Yusuf has successfully challenged this image. He shared his enthusiasm for the field of robotics and presented himself as a positive role model to the pupils. And in return the excitement of the high school students is palpable in the videos and pictures from the day. The spark of science fills their eyes. Bas Brouwer Mick Dam are the founders of NUVO – the platform that facilitates the engagement of Master Students in high school education in Delft Their efforts offer TU Delft Master Students a valuable learning moment: By sharing insights from their fields with pupils at high school in an educational setting, our students can find identify their own misunderstandings of their subject, learn to speak in front of non-scientific audiences and peak into education as a work field they themselves might not have considered. An extraordinary commitment According to the Mekel jury, the project scored well on all the criteria (risk mitigation, inclusiveness, transparency and societal relevance). However, it was the extraordinary commitment of Amos who was fully immersed during his Master Project and the efforts of Brouwer and Dam that brought together teaching and research which is integral to academic culture that made the project stand out. About the Mekel Prize The Mekel Prize will be awarded to the most socially responsible research project or extra-scientific activity (e.g. founding of an NGO or organization, an initiative or realization of an event or other impactful project) by an employee or group of employees of TU Delft – projects that showcase in an outstanding fashion that they have been committed from the beginning to relevant moral and societal values and have been aware of and tried to mitigate as much as possible in innovative ways the risks involved in their research. The award recognizes such efforts and wants to encourage the responsible development of science and technology at TU Delft in the future. For furthermore information About the project: https://www.de-nuvo.nl/video-robotica-pilot/ About the Mekel Prize: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/tpm/our-faculty/departments/values-technology-and-innovation/sections/ethics-philosophy-of-technology/mekel-prize

The ENHANCE Diversity Seed Fund

Are you a student at TU Delft or another ENHANCE university with a passion for promoting diversity and inclusion? The ENHANCE Diversity Seed Fund is your chance to turn that passion into action. ENHANCE provides funding to support innovative, student-led projects that address key challenges related to inclusion and diversity within our academic communities. Key Details: Funding Available: Up to 1500 Euros per project in the 1st round! Eligibility: Students from ENHANCE member universities. Staff can also join student-led initiatives. Application Deadline: 8 January 2025. More information: Join the online Information Event on the 26 November 2024 16:00-17:00 CET on Zoom . More information: enhanceuniversity.eu/diversity/diversityseedfund/

New catheter technology promises safer and more efficient treatment of blood vessels

Each year, more than 200 million catheters are used worldwide to treat vascular diseases, including heart disease and artery stenosis. When navigating into blood vessels, friction between the catheter and the vessel wall can cause major complications. With a new innovative catheter technology, Mostafa Atalla and colleagues can change the friction from having grip to completely slippery with the flick of a switch. Their design improves the safety and efficiency of endovascular procedures. The findings have been published in IEEE. Catheter with variable friction The prototype of the new catheter features advanced friction control modules to precisely control the friction between the catheter and the vessel wall. The friction is modulated via ultrasonic vibrations, which overpressure the thin fluid layer. This innovative variable friction technology makes it possible to switch between low friction for smooth navigation through the vessel and high friction for optimal stability during the procedure. In a proof-of-concept, Atalla and his team show that the prototype significantly reduces friction, averaging 60% on rigid surfaces and 11% on soft surfaces. Experiments on animal aortic tissue confirm the promising results of this technology and its potential for medical applications. Fully assembled catheters The researchers tested the prototype during friction experiments on different tissue types. They are also investigating how the technology can be applied to other procedures, such as bowel interventions. More information Publicatie DOI : 10.1109/TMRB.2024.3464672 Toward Variable-Friction Catheters Using Ultrasonic Lubrication | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore Mostafa Atalla: m.a.a.atalla@tudelft.nl Aimee Sakes: a.sakes@tudelft.nl Michaël Wiertlewski: m.wiertlewski@tudelft.nl Would you like to know more and/or attend a demonstration of the prototype please contact me: Fien Bosman, press officer Health TU Delft: f.j.bosman@tudelft.nl/ 0624953733

Design and imagination as essential tools during the climate crisis

In Nature Partner Journals, ten researchers advocate the use of imagination in tackling the climate crisis. They focus specifically on urbanising river deltas, which are of great social and economic importance and highly vulnerable to climate change. "We scientists should not merely outline doomsday scenarios," says Professor Chris Zevenbergen. "Create a vision for people to believe in and work towards.”

Inaugural address: machine optimisation key to more efficient logistics system

The processing and transport of materials can be made much more efficient, says TU Delft professor Dingena Schott in her inaugural address, ‘Advancing Transport and Processing: from Model to Impact’. She will deliver her address on 15 November. Her research focuses on the interaction between machines and materials, with a special emphasis on granular materials.

FAST University Fund invites all TU Delft students

FAST University Fund invites all TU Delft students to apply for the Ambitious Project Grant or the Event Grant of up to €15.000!

Education demonstration in Utrecht cancelled

Safety cannot be guaranteed In our post of 22 October , we announced that students and staff of TU Delft will have the opportunity to take part in protests against the cabinet's plans to cut higher education. Today it has been announced that the demonstration against the cuts to higher education and science on 14 November in Utrecht has been cancelled because the safety of the demonstrators cannot be guaranteed. Read the reaction of Universiteiten van Nederland to the cancellation of the education demonstration in Utrecht (Dutch only).

Young Investigator Award for Gabrielle Laloy-Borgna

Gabrielle has won the technical Young Investigator Award at Euroson 2024 (congress of the European Federation of Ultrasound Societies in Medicine and Biology) with her presentation entitled: “Ultrasound imaging in bones: tissue characterization, anatomical images
and blood flow measurements”.

Ilaria Orsi joined ImPhys as PhD student

Ilaria started her PhD program in the Renaud group about ultrasound imaging inside bones, contributing to the advancement of such non-invasive technique to characterize tissue composition and to quantify blood flow.

First prize for ZhenZhen Wu at the 2024 NWO Biophysics poster awards

ZhenZhen Wu's poster, “Absolute Voltage Imaging in Developing Zebrafish,” won first prize in the 2024 NWO Biophysics poster awards, competing against over 150 posters. The BioPM Poster Prizes are awarded to the best posters presented at the NWO Biophysics Conference, and the winners are selected by a jury. ZhenZhen Wu z.wu-3@tudelft.nl

Enrolment for new courses open on 13 November

The new courses will start from Monday 18 November. Enrolment for these starts from Wednesday 13 November at 08.00! In the second quarter, a new series of courses awaits you. You can find out more on the website. Maybe you already know that you want to attend your favourite course again or maybe you want to discover and try something new; it's all possible. The enrolment moment for the course depends on the day the course takes place. At 08:00 enrolments for Monday's courses open, at 10:00 for Tuesday's courses, at 12:00 for Wednesday's courses, at 14:00 for Thursday's courses and at 16:00 for courses on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Enrolments go fast Enrolment for our courses always runs fast, so don't wait too long or be surprised by a course where spots are still available! Enrolment closes Enrolment closes on Friday 22 November at 16.00.

Contributions of SPTL at the CVS Congress (21-22 November, Utrecht)

On November 21 and 22, the 51st edition of the CVS congress is held in the Railway museum in Utrecht. Members of the Smart Public Transport Lab contribute to the following sessions: Knus in de bus op dinsdag; zijn alle werkdagen nog wel hetzelfde? Thursday, November 21, 16:00-17:30 Julia Bickel, Maxim Meijers and Niels van Oort [abstract] Stedelijkheidsgraden in transportmodellen: Een analyse over de impact van de ruimtelijke omgeving op reisgedrag Thursday, November 21, 16:00-17:30 Janine Grauss, Justin Hogenberg and Niels van Oort [abstract] Van en naar het treinstation: Voorkeuren van reizigers voor gedeelde elektrische micromobiliteit Friday, November 22, 11:30-13:00 Nejc Geržinič, Mark van Hagen, Dorine Duives and Niels van Oort [ abstract ] Gamen maakt de toekomst – Serious gamen voor een optimale mobiliteitsmix Friday, November 22, 11:30-13:00 Tessa Leferink, Niels van Oort and Sander Lenferink [abstract] De verkenning van de potentie van fietsparkeren bij het ov: een casus in Den Haag Madeline Lai, Dorine Duives, Stefan Talen, Nejc Geržinič and Niels van Oort Friday, November 22, 14:00-15:30 [abstract]

A key solution to grid congestion

On behalf of the TU Delft PowerWeb Institute, researchers Kenneth Brunninx and Simon Tindemans are handing over a Position Paper to the Dutch Parliament on 14 November 2024, with a possible solution to the major grid capacity problems that are increasingly cropping up in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is unlikely to meet the 2030 climate targets, and one of the reasons for this is that large industry cannot switch to electricity fast enough, partly because of increasingly frequent problems around grid capacity and grid congestion. In all likelihood, those problems will actually increase this decade before they can decrease, the researchers argue. The solution offered by the TU Delft PowerWeb Institute researchers is the ‘flexible backstop’. With a flexible backstop, the current capacity of the power grid can be used more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. A flexible backstop is a safety mechanism that automatically and quickly reduces the amount of electricity that an electric unit can draw from the grid (an electric charging station or a heat pump) or deliver (a PV installation). It is a small device connected or built into an electrical unit, such as a charging station or heat pump, that ‘communicates’ with the distribution network operator. In case of extreme stress on the network, the network operator sends a signal to the device to limit the amount of power. Germany recently introduced a similar system with electric charging stations. The backstop would be activated only in periods of acute congestion problems and could help prevent the last resort measure, which is cutting off electricity to users. ‘Upgrading the electricity network remains essential, but in practice it will take years. So there is a need for short-term solutions that can be integrated into long-term planning. We, the members of the TU Delft PowerWeb Institute, call on the government, network operators and regulator to explore the flexible backstop as an additional grid security measure,’ they said. The entire Paper can be read here . Kenneth Brunninx Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, Governance and Management, where he uses quantitative models to evaluate energy policy and market design with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions. Simon Tindemans is Associate Professor in the Intelligent Electrical Power Grids group at Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. His research interests include uncertainty and risk management for power grids. TU Delft PowerWeb Institute is a community of researchers who are investigating how to make renewable energy systems reliable, future proof and accessible to everyone.