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Your site is growing. More EV chargers, a battery, solar on every roof. But the grid operator has bad news: a heavier connection is not happening any time soon. You start looking for an energy system that ties it all together and run into three terms that crop up in every conversation: energyhub, smart grid, microgrid. Sometimes used interchangeably. Sometimes presented as entirely different concepts. What is the difference, and which one fits your situation?
The answer is less technical than you might expect. The software and hardware are largely the same. The real distinction comes down to a single question.
The terms energyhub, smart grid and microgrid appear everywhere, but the distinction is not about technology. It is about who sits on the site.
- One company with multiple connections? You need a smart grid or microgrid. The software distributes capacity across your own buildings.
- Multiple companies on a shared connection? An energyhub is the route. It adds complexity in agreements, legal structure and cost allocation.
- The technical architecture is the same family: both run on an EMS per connection plus a Central EMS (CEMS) that coordinates across the site. The difference sits in the organisation, not the cables.
- At Kempisch Bedrijvenpark, five companies now share capacity through an energyhub. The connection that was blocking growth works for everyone.
Understanding which system fits your situation saves months of wrong turns and puts investment in the right direction.
The question that decides everything: how many owners sit on the site?
Picture a production hall, a warehouse and an office on the same site. Three connections, one owner. The production hall is running at 95% of capacity at eleven in the morning. The warehouse is ticking along at 12%. Together, there is plenty of headroom. But each building operates as an island.
This is a smart grid problem. One company, multiple connections, and the need to distribute capacity across a single site.
Now consider a manufacturing plant, a logistics company and an office building on the same site, each with a different owner and separate supplier, but sharing a collective capacity constraint. That is an energyhub. Multiple parties, shared limitations and the necessity to agree on who consumes what, and when.
That single question (are you the only owner on the site, or not?) determines which path you take.
Smart grid: intelligent control across multiple connections
A smart grid is an energy network at site level in which multiple connections belonging to one company are controlled centrally. The emphasis is on the intelligence of that control: the system predicts, optimises and adjusts in real time. A more detailed look at how a smart grid works is available in our overview.
What does that look like in practice? Take a manufacturer with three connections: 50, 50 and 100 kW. At a given moment the production hall needs 120 kW. The Central EMS (CEMS) sees that the other two connections have 20 kW of spare capacity between them. That headroom is shifted across immediately. If no headroom exists anywhere, the EMS curtails each connection automatically. The system never exceeds the technical limits.
Without that coordination layer, the manufacturer would need to apply for a fourth connection, or simply stop electrifying. In congestion areas, that is the difference between standing still and growing.
Microgrid: your site as a bounded energy network
A microgrid describes fundamentally the same architecture as a smart grid: one company, multiple connections, centrally controlled. The difference is one of emphasis. Where a smart grid highlights the intelligence of the control layer, a microgrid highlights the boundary and scale. The site as a self-contained network that operates as a whole.
That distinction becomes relevant once the site expands. An additional building, a new charging location, a battery on the car park: in a microgrid setup these connections are not treated as separate projects but as parts of one coordinated system. The CEMS distributes capacity dynamically; the EMS at each connection responds autonomously within the limits the CEMS sets.
In practice, smart grids and microgrids run on the same software layers and the same hardware. The terms place a different accent; the technology is the same family.
Energyhubs: multiple companies, shared connection, coordinated interests
An energyhub builds on the same technical foundation but adds an organisational layer on top. In an energyhub, multiple companies share a grid connection or operate under a collective capacity limit. That means you are not just coordinating assets, but also interests.
Who gets to use how much capacity, and when? How do you split the cost of a shared battery? What happens when two companies want to peak at the same time? In a smart grid with one owner, these are internal decisions. In an energyhub, they are negotiations.
That is why an energyhub is not just a technical project. It requires a legal structure (a group transport agreement, a closed distribution system or a cable pooling arrangement), agreed rules of play and transparent settlement.
At Kempisch Bedrijvenpark in Bladel, grid congestion was the direct trigger. New businesses could no longer move in; existing expansion plans were on hold. Five companies (ATD Machinery, VGI Group, Willems Baling Equipment, VDL Fibertech and MS Schippers) now share their energy infrastructure through an energyhub running on Tibo EMS. The system predicts peaks, spreads load and optimises for cost, emissions and grid pressure. The result: the existing connection now delivers more usable capacity, solar panels feed back into the grid again and new applications are being reconsidered.
What they share: the same software, different agreements
The technical architecture of a smart grid and an energyhub is the same family. Both run on two layers:
Both systems communicate via the same protocols (MODBUS, OCPP) and are hardware-agnostic. Whether you run a smart grid across your own three buildings or set up an energyhub with five neighbouring businesses, the software under the bonnet comes from the same family.
The difference sits above. In a smart grid, you decide as the owner how capacity is distributed. In an energyhub, that distribution must be contractually defined, transparent to all participants and automatically enforced by the EMS. That is not a technical detail. It is the difference between a project you decide internally and a project you carry together.
How do you determine what fits your situation?
The choice is less complicated than it seems once you ask the right questions.
In every case the same rule applies: start with data. Map the energy profiles. Simulate before you invest.
One platform, two paths
Whether you are setting up a smart grid or an energyhub, Tibo EMS is built for both. The platform controls solar panels, batteries, EV chargers and flexible loads in concert, across a single location or an entire business park. Under the bonnet, Alice, our algorithm, recalculates a 48-hour control schedule every five minutes based on energy prices, weather forecasts, consumption patterns and connection limits.
The result on energy-intensive sites: up to 60% lower energy costs and up to 50% lower CO₂ emissions.
Curious which path fits your site? Request a simulation. We run the numbers on your actual data to show what a smart grid or energyhub delivers, before you invest a penny.
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