The realised battery, which has a storage capacity of 4 megawatt hours, was supplied and installed by Alfen and is an investment from a joint venture between Odura and BOM.
The battery is connected to the 6 MVA connection of the recently opened Solar Park de Dassenberg in Bergen op Zoom. This park is owned by Odura and the owner of the adjacent estate De Dassenberg. With this battery, the investors aim to contribute to the stabilisation and flexibilisation of the electricity grid in order to accelerate the energy transition.
Own battery service
Odura not only developed the battery but also set up a service over the past year to manage the control of the battery itself. During the development phase, it proved difficult to find affordable and transparent control services for such medium-sized batteries.
Joost Berkvens of Odura says: “We believe in the value of batteries and other flexible power in the transition to a sustainable energy supply. That is why we started developing the control service ourselves. We have named this service “Wattson” and we are now also using it to control other forms of flexible power from ourselves and others.”
By developing the service in-house and using a digital twin of the Alfen battery, Odura was able to test the control software before the delivery of the battery itself. As a result, the Odura team was able to deploy the physical battery within 2 weeks after delivery.
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Partners
Over the past eighteen months, BOM and Odura have worked closely together to create a structure in which multiple battery projects can be realized. Koen den Houting, Investment Manager at BOM: ‘From our role as a regional development company, BOM strongly believes in innovative and decentralized solutions for the energy transition. In this vision, BOM and Odura have found each other as partners. Odura's decisive project approach confirms our choice for this collaboration.”
Joost Berkvens: “We are very happy with the collaboration with BOM. In this phase of market development, battery systems are still difficult to finance. BOM has taken a leading role in this, which has significantly accelerated the project. With this, we already have a reference project in place that we can further build on for both management and battery development.”
Financing
BOM and Odura do see some reluctance from banks regarding the financing of batteries, especially when it comes to full merchant batteries, as is the case here. While banks can rely on assurances from the SDE++ schemes for other projects such as solar fields and wind farms, this concerns a rapidly developing market where the business model is less crystallized in advance.
BOM believes that this should not hinder the transition and therefore, for this investment, provides not only equity but also initially the debt capital. Den Houting on this: “We provide the loan not only to expedite the realization of this project, but also to demonstrate that medium-sized batteries have a stable business case in the energy transition, even if you do not lease them to a major BRP.”
Sustainable energy projects
Both Odura and BOM have several sustainable energy projects in their portfolio where batteries will still be realized in the future. Both partners aim to play a role in the emergence of new flexibility and congestion-related services by developing and managing multiple batteries in the future.
