Solarplaza Summit | Energy Storage The Netherlands

Evert Bende, PhD is Technical Consultant at Huawei Digital Power Benelux. For the last fourteen years he has been working in photovoltaics (PV), from cells to systems, and in recent years also in energy storage. In addition to that, he can rely on working experience in the energy markets and ICT. Evert really enjoys combining these fields to help accelerate the energy transition.

Rens Savenije is the business lead system integration at Ventolines. As business lead system integration Rens is responsible for the business development and execution of new projects where wind, solar and storage are combined in one hybrid asset. He will present his work on Windplan Groen, a 500MW wind energy project in the Netherlands, where wind, solar and storage owners are sharing one high voltage grid connection using a private grid. Ventolines guides clients in the development, construction and management of now more than 2 GW installed capacity of renewable energy. They have experience with projects on land and in the water working on solutions for solar, wind, storage and hybrid projects.

Dr. Koen Broess has a PhD in biophysics and a master’s degree in chemistry. He is responsible as segment leader energy storage EVs for business development in North Europe. He is also key account manager. He has more than 11 years of experience in energy storage projects, new services and business models in the energy market and has set up and coordinated several (inter-)national projects. He is responsible for quality control of proposals and involved in the development of the battery safety test center. On national level, he was involved in the Dutch climate agreement, roadmap energy storage and the roadmap of electric vehicle batteries for the Dutch government. He is a member of the working group for the Dutch ministry of Infrastructure and water management for battery safety and regulations. Koen is a member of the executive board of the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE).

Sam Wilkinson is a Research Manager for the Solar and Energy Storage Research group at IHS Markit (now part of S&P Global). During his time working within the group, Sam has been responsible for researching the PV inverter market and the PV module and poly-silicon supply chain working closely with leading global suppliers to develop detailed analysis on these markets. Sam has also been responsible for establishing primary research reports focusing on solar demand and policy, complementing IHS extensive research of the complete PV supply chain. Building on his experience in the solar research team, Sam established and now leads IHS Technology’s coverage of energy storage, covering a wide range of topics within this fast developing sector. Sam’s analysis and commentary is regularly published by leading PV and energy industry media and also the global press. He has also presented at many leading industry events and conferences. Before beginning his career at IHS Markit (now part of S&P Global), Sam worked as a Structural Engineer for one of Europe’s leading engineering firms. He graduated from The University of Nottingham with a degree in Engineering.

Lars Rupert is founder and CFO of GIGA Storage. Lars has an extensive experience in structuring and mergers & acquisitions. He was involved in many (re)financings and the setting up of international investment funds and investment structures. As CFO Lars is responsible for the financial side of the business cases of GIGA Storage

Thomas Hajonides is a cost and benefit expert working as a strategy & business consultant at TNO, the Dutch institute for applied scientific research. His main focus areas are business model development and feasibility assessments of novel energy system technologies. And he has a special interest in the establishing mutual gains in multi-stakeholder situations. He has a background in energy system integration of high-voltage infrastructure as well as quantitative policy analysis.

Roland co-chairs the Loyens & Loeff Energy Team, advising energy companies and other market parties on regulatory aspects of transactions and representing his clients in court proceedings. He also participates in decision-making processes by policymakers and regulators, such as the Dutch Consumer & Market Authority (ACM). The scope of his work extends across the entire energy chain: gas (E&P, storage, LNG, transport and supply), power (generation, transport and supply), renewables, heat and CO2. Roland is a member of the Dutch Energy Law Association and regularly publishes on Energy law-related topics.

Dirk Jan is co-founder of Repowered and works on a mission to enable renewable energy at the right place, moment and price. Dirk Jan has over 15 years of experience in the energy market, with a special focus on portfolio management and the role of flexibility in the energy system. By integrating flexibility solution, like battery storage, Repowered enables further penetration of renewable energy. Dirk Jan is involved in different project around the development of storage, smart energy hubs and hydrogen solutions. As a Flex Service Provider Repowered helps asset owners to optimise the value of their battery projects.

Remko is a senior account manager at Triodos Bank with a focus on financing sustainable energy projects. He started his career at ABN AMRO Bank and has been active in the sustainable energy market since 2016. As the solar and wind markets have matured Triodos made the conscious decision to focus on other sectors such as the heat transition, sustainable transportation, and energy storage. Triodos group has been involved in the financing of 10 battery storage projects in NW Europe. As a frontrunner in the energy transition Triodos continues to play a pivotal role in developing sustainable energy markets.

Jan Willem has over 20 years of experience in the energy market and worked for some of the larger utilities. Early 2020, Jan Willem sold his previous companies Greenspread and Greencrowd to private equity concern NPM Capital. Since his departure in October 2020, Jan Willem works as an independent consultant at Stratergy. Stratergy advises funds, banks, utilities, and large consumers and producers of energy and specializes in maximizing asset value and minimizing financial risk.

Eric van der Gun is one of the founders and shareholders of SolarEnergyWorks. SolarEnergyWorks has successfully developed and grid connected >200MW of solar projects throughout the Netherlands and maintains a well-developed pipeline of solar projects. Storage is becoming a standard and integrated aspect of projects. Due to congestion and grid limitations connection becomes increasingly critical for renewable energy projects. Pooling with windfarms, connecting with large off take and integrating storage for the optimisation of the grid connection becomes and ever-increasing challenge and competitive advantage. Optimising grid connection with storage creates opportunities to connected larger capacity, improve trade margins, prevent with curtailment and create separate business models. Eric studied at the RUG and holds a drs. in Business, besides a Master of Real Estate acquired at TIAS/Nimbas and is happy married, father of three.

Mark Straver is Technical Director at Klimaatfonds Nederland. Klimaatfonds Nederland is a Dutch solar investment fund focused on large scale solar energy projects in the Netherlands and has currently close to 200MW operational and under construction. It enables developers and project owners to accelerate their project development activities by providing them with Dutch capital, knowledge and bankable contracts to successfully realize their solar projects. Prior to joining Klimaatfonds Nederland, Mark was working for Lightsource BP where he was responsible for the technical EPC contracts of a >600MWp portfolio and he managed the team responsible for the Quality Assurance of their 2GWp portfolio.

Bouke has a broad experience in the renewable energy industry and has been operating in the energy storage business for more than 25 years. In the late nineties he was involved in battery storage for General Electric (GE) in Asia and Australia. When returning to Netherlands in 2007, he headed the Solar Energy business of Mastervolt, a pioneering company in the field of inverters for renewable energy and storage. In 2019 he founded Friday Energy, a leading provider of Battery Energy Storage Systems and associated software. Friday Energy’s mission is to allow access to 100% clean and affordable energy for everyone and is currently rolling out a network of Energy Storage Systems in the Netherlands.

Fredrik Troost is structurer within Eneco Energy Trade. Fredrik is responsible for the procurement of flexibility for Eneco’s power portfolios in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the UK. He was involved in the development of Eneco’s 48 MW battery asset in the north of Germany, at the time in a joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation. In his roles within Eneco’s trading floor he has gained extensive knowledge of the short term traded markets and balancing markets and how to monetize on these markets with gas-fired assets, renewable assets, storage and distributed flexible assets.

Bouke van der Weerdt is the Solutions Manager for Huawei’s Benelux Solar division, seated in the Amsterdam office. With over 14 years of experience in power conversion technology for both terrestrial and space applications, photovoltaic applications became the common thread in his professional career.Huawei, in the industry mainly known for smartphones, enterprise IT and telecom products, is now also the #1 global supplier for string inverters with an installed portfolio exceeding 90GW in 2018. Huawei’s solar portfolio delivers complete inverter solutions from 2kW residential applications up to utility-scale solar farms as large as 1GW using exclusively string inverters.In his current position as Solutions Manager, Bouke is responsible for the customer’s technical requests within the Benelux sales team. “My job is to help the customer find the best solution for his application, using Huawei’s extensive product portfolio. These solutions extend far beyond the classical PV module – inverter interface, into more data-driven approaches where digital communication becomes key to the long-term success of the installation.”

Chiem Ringers is working as a consultant at grid operator Liander. At Liander he focuses on two topics: 1) the role of energy storage in the energy system, especially as a solution for grid congestion 2) Integral energy system planning with stakeholders like provinces, city councils, and other stakeholders. He has a background in chemical engineering at TU Delft, lives in the city of Rotterdam and has been working at Alliander for a little over 4 years now in different roles.

Margit Deimel (56) is responsible for solar development in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK at Vattenfall. She studied physical geography at the university of Utrecht and worked several years as environmental consultant before moving to the Swedish utility. Initially she worked as onshore wind developer securing several investment decisions. In 2017 she switched to solar development to help set up the new solar business unit. During her years as consultant Margit saw the high environmental impact of a growing society and realized that fundamental changes in energy production were needed. Not only to keep pace with a growing energy demand, but also to reduce the need for fossil energy production. Over the 20 years that Margit has been developing renewable parks, projects have become ever more complex: bigger wind turbines, bigger sites, grid constraints, conflicts of interest. She is optimistic that solutions for all these issues are at hand. One is the deep integration of batteries in renewable production projects.

Henrike is an Associate at Aurora Energy Research since November 2021. As part of Aurora’s Commissioned Projects team in Berlin, she advises investors, utilities and off-takers on European power markets, with a focus on flexibility and electricity market design. Before joining Aurora, Henrike worked for three years at the European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT in Paris. She focused on policy and market design developments in short-term trading and flexibility markets mainly in the German, Nordic and Baltic markets. Henrike holds a MSc in Economics with a focus on energy from the University of Cologne. She graduated at the Institute of Energy Economics (ewi).

Alfonso Barrenechea is a Project Manager - Solar Asset Management at Solarplaza, the global platform for knowledge and network in the solar PV industry. He specializes in the area of events and services for solar asset management, the growing industry segment focused on maintaining and optimizing operational solar assets. Prior to joining Solarplaza, Alfonso worked at Bitbond, Reykjavik Energy and Boston GreenFest. He holds a Master's degree in Sustainable Energy Science from Reykjavik University and a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science from Jacobs University Bremen. If he's not advocating renewable energy, data science and diversity, you'll find him in the climbing gym, on the football pitch or shooting hoops.