We catch up with SemperPower, developer and owner of the two largest BESS projects in the Netherlands, discussing its commercial model, challenges, grid, regulations and more.
SemperPower brought online a 30.7M/62.6MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in November 2023, (Castor) followed a month later by another, larger project at 30MW/68MWh (Pollux), the two largest BESS units in the country. Prior to that, the largest was a 24MW/48MWh system from another firm Giga Storage.
The challenges in the Netherlands‘ grid-scale energy storage market are numerous and well-documented, including a highly congested grid, ‘double-charging’ of energy storage as both consumer and producer and a relative lack of familiarity with energy storage.
Deployment ahead of returns
SemperPower’s commercial director Jacob Jan Stuyt explains to Energy-Storage.news that the firm’s model for monetising its project at least gets around the bankability challenges related to the third point.
The firm develops and owns its projects but rents out its capacity under long-term agreements – 10-15 years – to different customers. This allows SemperPower to provide fixed, contracted revenues when arranging bank financing, whereas in most markets a BESS’ merchant model would keep debt portions of a project financing relatively ...
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