Solarplaza Summit | The Netherlands

Prof. Dr. Ir. Jan Rotmans is a renowned international authority on transitions and sustainability. As a pioneer of transition science in the Netherlands and creator of the integrated climate model globally, Professor Rotmans offers insightful solutions to the chaos and crises affecting governments, businesses, and individuals alike. His lectures and masterclasses span 11 defined transitions in areas such as energy, resources, agriculture, food, circularity, finance, and more. He simplifies complex subjects, tailoring his presentations to the specific needs of his audience and encouraging not just new thinking, but new actions.

Hans de Heer is a Principal Consultant in DNV’s Energy Advisory practice and business development manager Energy Markets & Strategy North-West Europe, with focus on demand side flexibility and grid congestion. He has over 20 years of expertise as an advisor in the energy sector, and gained extensive experience in energy markets and regulations, focusing on (societal) cost-benefit analyses, market design, energy transition, market analysis and electricity infrastructure.

Joris Besseling is heading the market design and european market integration teams at TenneT TSO. He has been working with tennet on market design project for the last seven years, and worked previously at an energy transition consultancy and with the utility Vattenfall.

Wilko is a lawyer and has ample experience in regulated markets and competition law. His main focus is the energy sector. He works in cases relating to the energy transition, grid congestion, and tariff regulation. Prior to joining the ACM, he worked as an attorney in Stek’s regulatory team. Wilko holds LLM’s in both European law and law & economics.

Jakoba van der Mei works as an Investment Director at StartGreen Capital. StartGreen Capital has over €400 million in assets under management and provides both entrepreneurs and project owners financing for the energy transition and the circular economy. Her personal focus is on wind energy, solar, battery storage systems and energy infrastructure. Previously she held roles within investment banking in London and projectfinance at SMBC where she financed 1.9 GW of offshore and onshore wind. Jakoba is responsible for the acquisition, deal execution, and portfolio management of the new StartGreen Transition fund.

Daniel Vig is a Senior Policy Officer at the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE), where he leads advocacy efforts on energy storage policy and represents the interests of EASE members. His work focuses on key issues such as grid fees for energy storage, tariff structures, and regulatory barriers to integrating energy storage into Europe’s energy system.

Arja Even has over 20 years experience in societal transitions of which 15 years in the energy transition. She works at RVO, the ‘Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland’, eg the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. RVO is known for financial subsidy schemes and programs directed to other necessary conditions. She is program coordinator, for a program focusing on flexibility, storage and grid congestion for both renawable energy plants and enterprises.

Maaike Beenes coordinates the work of Holland Solar on cyber security, responsible business conduct, and other supply chain issues. Holland Solar represents the Dutch solar-PV market in The Hague and Brussels. Maaike has a background in international relations. For Holland Solar, she focusses on supporting the solar sector to increase cyber security performance, including by improving regulatory conditions and setting up a cyber risk information sharing network.

Nold Jaeger leads the Holland Solar policy and public affairs team. Holland Solar represents the Dutch solar-PV market in The Hague and Brussels. He has been involved in the policy-making field for solar PV for the past five years. With a background in EU energy and climate policy, for the last five years, he has focussed on improving the development conditions for large-scale solar PV on land, rooftops, and water and residential PV.

Wouter Schram is policy advisory in the Customer & Markets - Market Design team of TenneT. His work is mostly focused on congestion management and the impact of policies aiming to alleviate congestion on the functioning of markets. Before working at TenneT, Wouter was a researcher at Utrecht University and University of Twente, focusing on integration of Photovoltaics in the energy system.

Soe van Dijk is an innovation analyst specializing in cyber resilience at Energy Innovation NL (Topsector Energie), a platform driving knowledge and innovations needed for the transition to a more affordable, reliable, safe, and sustainable energy system. She has a multidisciplinary background and a keen research interest at the intersection of the energy transition, innovation, and cybersecurity. As part of the programme on digitalisation, she coordinated several projects, including an exploration of cybersecurity collaboration within the solar energy sector (TNO 2023) and a study on cybersecurity threats and mitigation strategies for solar power installations (Secura 2024).

Tom van Dorp is heading the project development team of Ampyr Solar Europe, an IPP active in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. In the last two years almost 150 MWp of PV solar has been grid connected in the Netherlands. Tom has over 15 years of experience in renewables. Before Ampyr he has been CEO of solar project developer SolarEnergyWorks (in 2022 acquired by Ampyr) and CCO of Solarplaza.

Hrvoje Medarac is the Head of Dutch New Energy Research who combines education in energy engineering and economics with 20 years of experience in energy transition, from energy consulting and engineering of renewable energy plants to public financing of energy transition projects, policy making at Croatian Ministry of Economy and research at European Commission's Joint Research Centre.

Pia van der Feltz has 20+ years of experience in origination, structuring, execution as well as relationship and portfolio management of infrastructure and project finance transactions with financial institutions in New York, London, Vienna and the Netherlands. Since 2011 she has been actively involved in a large number of renewable projects in the Netherlands and other European countries at Rabobank. Within the Project Finance team she is currently executive director and team lead relationship & portfolio management for the mid Europe region with the Netherlands being the biggest country. Recently she worked on several larger solar PV projects based on a combination of subsidy schemes, corporate PPAs and merchant revenues and is closely involved in the relationship management of the Dutch solar and wind project finance clients of Rabobank. Rabobank was one of the first financiers in the offshore wind sector, is currently also very active in BESS financings and has built up a strong portfolio in renewable energy, giving a distinctive advantage in terms of knowledge and experience for our clients and for new projects.

Will follow soon

Liam Coman is a solar research analyst within the Clean Energy Technology research team at S&P Global. He researches the cleantech supply chain, particularly focused on the inverter, solar tracker, and power conversion system (PCS) markets. He works with suppliers to analyse trends, produce market forecasts and assess the competitive landscape of the clean tech industry. Prior to joining S&P Global, Mr. Coman worked for an engineering consultancy specialising in environmental regulation and policy compliance. He holds an M.Eng in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering from Trinity College Dublin.

Gijs de Koning has been editor-in-chief at 365media since January 2025, where he previously worked as a journalist and editor. Before that, he co-founded De Koning Energie with his brother, an installation company specializing in solar panels, air conditioners, heat pumps, home batteries, and EV chargers. He holds academic degrees in Journalism and American Studies from the University of Groningen. During his master's program, he interned at the video editorial team of Algemeen Dagblad (AD) and contributed to the true crime podcast De Zaak X.

Rens Savenije is the Commercial Director at Ventolines. With over 12 years of experience, he has led large projects and teams in the renewable energy sector. Rens will join a panel on regulatory and market challenges in Dutch energy storage, covering market trends, policy changes, cybersecurity risks, non-EU technology integration, spatial regulations, and financing models. Ventolines is an integrated service provider in the sustainable energy sector, supporting clients at every stage. We have achieved more than 2 GW of sustainable energy capacity for our clients and manage an asset portfolio of over 1.5 GW. We delivering solutions for wind, solar, energy storage, and system integration projects.

Lianne has 8 years of experience in renewables. She has worked on the contracting side of the innovative offshore wind Two Towers project (19 MW, the Netherlands, 2021) and is currently involved in the contracting and financing of various solar projects (including PPA and storage aspects) in the Netherlands. Before joining Green Giraffe, Lianne worked as a lawyer at Allen & Overy in the Dutch project finance team. Amongst others, she advised on the financing of the Krammer onshore wind farm (100 MW, the Netherlands, 2016) and solar park Sunport Delfzijl (31 MW, the Netherlands, 2016). Lianne holds an LLM in European energy and climate law from the University of Groningen.

Eelco Hoogduin is managing director of Zonnepark Services. After his studies in aquatic ecotechnology and industrial ecology, he started his career in C&I solar PV in 2012. After some years of working for a large C&I EPC, as a business developer and project manager, he organized worldwide business events on solar asset management for Solarplaza, mainly in the US, southern Europe and Japan. In 2017 he became director of asset management at Rooftop Energy (curren Groendus), where he was responsible for hundreds of C&I and utility scale solar assets. This company has been acquired by a large private equity firm, and has rolled out a successful buy and build strategy, including acquisitions of two solar developers and several companies in the broader electricity landscape. Since 2021, he is managing director of Zonnepark Services Nederland, a joint venture between GOLDBECK Solar and Chint Solar, which is the leading solar O&M provider in The Netherlands with over 1.7 gigawatt of contracted capacity.

Graduated banker 25 years plus of experience in financing and structuring as expert and in leadership functions in industries like capital markets, real estate and infrastructure / renewable energy 2010 to 2019 responsible for project finance and corporate finance in renewable energy with Hamburg Commercial Bank, one of the leading commercial banks in this area, since 2012 Head of Renewable Energy 2019 to 2022 Chief Investment Officer of Connected Infrastructure Capital, an equity investor in renewables; responsible for M&A, Power Purchase Agreements and financing Since 2022 managing partner of Dauerkraft Finance Closed M&A transactions of more than 100 MW in countries including Germany, Sweden and The Netherlands, financed projects of approximately 4 GW in Europe

Research associate at the European University in Florence, Jan specializes in aligning technology, finance, and policy to drive the transition to a net zero carbon economy.

Joren advises on modelling of comprehensive business cases in the energy and resources industry. The past years he led renewable projects in Europe and Middle East with focus on investment decisions for renewable electrons, hydrogen and related system integration. His clients compliment him for keeping oversight, his flexibility in delivery and user friendliness of developed tooling.

Stephan Falcao Ferreira is a Business Developer at Invest-NL, focusing on hydrogen and long-duration energy storage. He identifies financing opportunities and policy interventions to scale up clean energy technologies in close collaboration with public and private stakeholders. Stephan has over five years of experience addressing key barriers in the hydrogen value chain. His recent work includes pioneering projects on hydrogen imports, demand creation within industry, and innovative financing solutions in this space.

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Michiel van der Pant is founder and managing director of Encast. After his studies in Business Economics, he started his career in the telecom industry in 2000. This market was booming due to incumbent deregulation and the rise of new services like internet and mobile. In 2007, after working for companies like Versatel and Scarlet, he co-founded Teleena Holding, providing wholesale services to new mobile brands like Hollandsnieuwe, Ziggo-mobiel, and TATA Communications. Teleena Holding was sold to TATA Communications in 2018. From 2016 onwards, Michiel joined the management team of Simpel, a Dutch mobile brand serving the youth segment. Simpel was sold to T-Mobile Netherlands in 2020. While working for a remote IT company, he learned about the opportunity to use AI and machine learning to forecast consumption and production for energy markets. After some trials he founded a new company called Encast in 2022 and started to offer forecasting to companies with solar assets and energy suppliers. After forecasting, the request came to implement curtailment, grid congestion, and battery steering services. This is now operating as one workflow and comes with a portal that provides insights and reports. Encast is certified by TenneT as a CSP since early 2024 and an energy supplier to the large business market as per January 2025.

Simon De Clercq is Senior Associate at Aurora Energy Research. He leads the Belgian and Dutch research team and manages Aurora’s products on the Dutch and Belgian power and flexibility markets. Prior to joining Aurora, Simon was based in Mozambique where he advised the Mozambican government on the mobilization of climate finance. Before that, he worked as a strategy and policy consultant on renewable energy in Brussels.

Bart has 10+ years of experience in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on the energy domain. He heads the Utrecht Office of Enjins, an agency that accelerates energy start-ups, scale-ups, and innovative organizations to build, deploy, and maintain algorithms at scale.

Dee Yon Chng (pronounced Dion) is a project manager for Solarplaza spearheading the following events in chronological order: Agri-PV 2023, Floating-PV 2023, Energy Storage Spain 2023, Romania 2024, France 2024. Prior to Solarplaza she helped co-found a "floating" coaching company, and worked as sustainability consultant. She is a strong believer in knowledge sharing around sustainability topics, with 10 years of chairman experience in facilitating a collaborative and fruitful discussion.