Battery storage in The Netherlands with Rens Savenije (Business Lead System Integration @ Ventolines)

- But let's first talk about the cost. So we have quite a big problem because our grid fees are really high. It's not getting a grid connection, but it's the operational grid fees.

And because of these huge grid reinforcements, these tariffs have been increasing and increasing. The tariffs, on a TSO level, have increased by a factor of four over the last year.

- I think, sorry, they are four times higher than they were a year ago?

- Pretty much how much you can make with a battery, right, on an annual basis. And it's about the same as this number. Try make up this huge amount with revenues. It's almost impossible. It's almost impossible.

- We talked a lot about grid scale batteries on their own, standalone. What about co-location in the Netherlands? Because you've got all this solar, right? And is there any subsidy mechanism?

- If you combine your battery with an generating asset, you can avoid these high costs. And that makes the business case for at least for co-located projects for wind energy really interesting. There is no subsidy going to--

ANNOUNCER: Hello and welcome back to Transmission. In this episode, Rens Savenije, business lead of system integrations at Ventolines joins Quentin to discuss the power system and battery energy storage in the Netherlands.

Over the conversation, they explore the Hi grid, congestion and grid costs facing the system, the opportunity for co-location of storage, and much more. If you're enjoying the podcast, please hit Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and give us a rating wherever you listen, let's jump in.

- Ventolines or ventolines. Which one should we start with?

- Ventolines.

- Ventolines. OK, so what does that mean?

- It's actually a wind. Like you have in France, you have the mistral. And so Ventoline is also a wind. And originally, we've mostly been working in wind energy projects. So yeah, that's where the name is coming from.

- So Rens, I want to say a massive thank you for joining us on the podcast. We've got quite a lot to cover today. If you're listening--

this episode is going to be a bit like the Lars Stefan episode, where we went deep into Germany.

But this time, we're going to go deep into the Netherlands and talk all things power systems in the Netherlands, and especially grid scale storage. And we've got Rens on from Ventolines, who really knows this market. So it's going to be a fun one. Rens, do you just want to introduce yourself and talk a little bit about the company?

- So yes. My name is Rens Savenije. I work for Ventolines. We are an advisor to large renewable energy projects.

So wind energy, solar energy, batteries, preferably combined. And we advise throughout all phases of a project. So early permitting, grid contracting, financing, construction, even asset management. So we pretty much help investors and developers throughout these projects.

- And what do you do there? So I have a pretty commercial role. So I pretty much make sure we have the work so that we get the orders. And then I select the team together with the entire heads of department, and we do the project.

But I'm in the early stage of projects talking to clients, making sure they want to work with us. But before, I mean, this is now I have a commercial role. But before, I was an engineer. I was a researcher. I was project leader of some of these large projects myself. And only for the last few years I've taken up this more of a commercial role.

- And Ventolines, do you operate--

you're in the Netherlands right now. But do you operate just in the Netherlands, or do you cover the rest of Europe?

- So our base is the Netherlands. We've now--

actually it's, nice to say, it's a family company. There's about 100 people here. And most of our work is in the Netherlands. But we definitely work abroad.

We've done some really cool projects in the US and Australia, but also in other European countries. But our--

yeah, Netherlands is where we do the majority of our work.

- And I'm so excited to do this conversation because this is the first time we've gone deep on the Dutch market on this podcast. And there's so much to cover.

Could you just talk for a second about your involvement or Ventolines' involvement in battery energy storage? And then why does battery energy storage matter for the Dutch energy transition?

- So at Ventolines, we are now working for a huge number of battery projects. I think I counted recently, it's about almost 30 projects, and they range between five megawatt to 500 megawatt. And their projects, battery projects co-located with wind energy, solar, power plants, and of course grid scale standalone batteries.

We can talk about that later more. And why is this really ramping up in the Netherlands right now? At least the pipeline is, is that we have--

this year, we have 50% of our electricity generation is from renewables.

And we have seen a huge growth in solar over the last few years. And also, wind energy, we've been steadily increasing. So yeah. And with renewables, as you know, we need storage.

So that's--

yeah. And also, our grid is hugely congested. So battery storage, of course, have an important role there as well to play.

- And let's start really zoomed out, and then zoom in. So the Dutch--

let's start with the Dutch economy.

Which parts of the Dutch economy are using power, and especially a lot of power? Is it manufacturing? Is it process is a big--

how much domestic is there? Is there a lot of electric vehicles? What is the load side of the Dutch power market look like?

- I think that's not very different than any other European countries. It's, of course, just general households, company, data centers, larger industry.

But maybe it's good to mention that still, only about at a small fraction of our energies is still electrified. So the largest part is still gas. But in terms of electricity is I think not very different from any other European countries.

- And when we did the episode with Lars a few weeks ago, it's funny, he said that the European electricity grid or the power grid is the biggest machine on the planet or something to that--

and it's funny. It was just a lovely phrase.

- It's all connected, right. Yeah.

- And yeah. I mean, there's quite a lot of chatter on the YouTube comments and various other places about whether that was true or not, which was quite interesting. But how does the Dutch--

how is the Dutch power grid interconnected with the rest of Europe?

- So the Netherlands has strong interconnections. So with the UK, Denmark, Norway, and of course Belgium and Germany. So there's interconnections. And also, the Dutch TSO TenneT, they have plans to expand this connection.

And I fully agree with Lars that one of the priorities of this energy transition is a strong European grid. And grid reinforcements inside countries on every voltage level, medium to high voltage, is crucial. But then also, the interconnection. So yeah, we're pretty much connected to all the countries surrounding us.

- What is the size of the demand in the Netherlands? How does it compare to Germany or the UK, or the Nordics?

I'm going to put you on the spot here. What's peak demand?

- Yeah, I think it's--

of course, it varies. But I think the highest peak is about 17 gigawatt.

In that order. And it ranges typically on a normal day somewhere between, I think--

somewhere, I think seven and 14, seven and 15 gigawatt. That's our peak demand.

And of course, compared to Germany, that's very small, but we're much smaller country. But maybe what is also interesting to say is what's the Dutch energy mix and how that relates to our peak demand. Because I just mentioned the huge increase in solar.

So in only--

I think in only six years, we increased from four gigawatts solar to 24 gigawatts. So that's 20 gigawatt of solar in six years. So every year, that's four gigawatts added.

- Wow.

- And that's just--

I mean, that's just a revolution, right. That's just insane.

And that has, of course, huge impact on grid and on our energy mix. And that's just a big change. And then originally, in our energy mix, there's, of course--

well, of course, so there's quite a lot of gas and coal.

We have a little bit of nuclear and then some waste power plants, some smaller generators. But it's mostly gas, coal, and then nuclear. And then, of course, now, this 24 gigawatt solar and another 11 gigawatt wind.

- Is that onshore wind?

- Both. So I think the--

so the majority of our wind generation is still onshore.

But now, the growth for offshore wind in the Netherlands is huge. So now, like I said, we have now 11 gigawatt of wind total.

There will be another 10 gigawatt added offshore over the next seven years. So I think they have plans to reach 21 gigawatt in 2030.

So there's a lot of offshore wind going to join the energy mix. Yeah.

- And so to--

if I've got this correct, so to summarize, roughly 15 to 20 gigs of peak demand to size it as a power grid and power demand. And then a real mix of generation types in there. But huge astronomical growth, really in solar, and lots more wind to come. And highly interconnected to.

OK. So we've got an idea about the Dutch power sector. Let's talk a little bit about batteries then. So what's the--

can you give an overview, before we get started, of the existing grid scale battery energy storage projects in the Netherlands. And have we got tens of megawatts, hundreds of megawatts, gigawatts? What does the world look like for batteries in the Netherlands right now?

- So it's a contradiction. Because battery projects are booming in the Netherlands. But we don't have so many batteries operational yet. So over the last few years, we've grown up to 200, about 250 megawatt of batteries.

And those are batteries ranging in size, somewhere between five to 30 megawatt. And those are currently operational. And they are standalone batteries on medium voltage or DSO level.

And then a lot of batteries with co-located, either with wind, with solar or with PowerPlan plants. Maybe--

and it adds up with 250 megawatt, about, more or less. I recently posted something on LinkedIn, which shows all the projects in the Netherlands on the Dutch map, which shows all the operational projects, but also the ones that are in construction and soon to be permitted or permitted. So that's the current situation.

Why I said it's booming, because, maybe just to drop a number, at the TSO, which is the high voltage grid operator TenneT, they have now 70 gigawatt of battery projects on their waiting list or in progress of being connected, 70 gigawatt. So that's enormous.

And nobody's saying that all those projects will be realized. It just shows the huge interest and willingness of developers and investors to be part of this transition. So that's just mind blowing.

- That probably leads us on to a question about where in the Netherlands batteries are best placed to be. So the market for power in--

well, let's talk about the pricing. So are price is national or local in the Netherlands?

- They're national.

- They're national. And is there a economic or even a system benefit to have batteries in certain places? And how has that being considered or managed?

- So no. We have one bid zone. So we have the batteries that are currently being developed or are operational. The first ones. So a couple of years ago. They were mostly working for or maintaining the grid frequency. So FCR, Frequency Containment Reserve.

Those were typically 1C batteries. So there were 10 megawatt, 10 megawatt-hour batteries. Now, you see that these batteries that are being built, they are towards half C or even a quarter C. And they are moving towards ancillary services for the TSO or for the imbalance market or for. AFR.

And that is currently the--

so the imbalance market is, I think, the dominant market currently. And then there's the--

Lars explained last time also. It's about the day ahead and intraday.

So you see a shift from one C batteries to half C, quarter C. And they're moving to different kind of revenue streams.

- And you guys have got--

there's an enormous congestion problem, isn't there, in the Netherlands?

- Yeah.

- I mean, you guys--

this phrase that the Dutch grid is the most reliable in the world or something like that.

- At least that's what we try to claim, right.

- [LAUGHS]

I mean, I don't know how you measure that. I mean, I'm on board with it.

- I think that's something the Dutch like to say. But I mean, it's true, that our grid is extremely reliable. And we have very high standards. But so do most European countries. It's just crucial to have a vital economy.

So yes, indeed, that's something we like--

we like to say. But also, I think we we're one of the first countries that really was exposed to grid congestions, so that grid congestion. And that started out already, I think, four years ago.

We have these maps that we like to update. And it shows these red areas, where you cannot have any grid capacity, either for offtake or feeding in. And currently, if you look at the Dutch map, it's red.

It is hardly--

there's hardly any place in the Netherlands left, where you can get grid capacity. So it's a huge problem.

- But what about all this offshore wind? So this offshore wind, the Dutch offshore wind in the North Sea is going to be really expensive. Because of the--

well, I'll let you talk about that. Why is offshore wind in the North Sea for the Netherlands is going to be so expensive?

And what does this do to connection queues and priorities across the grid? Because really, you need to get that power from the sea on the West over to continental Europe. So how are you guys thinking about that problem?

- So there's two aspects of this. So first of all, there's the enormous impact on grid cost. So we are building, as we like to call it, the powerhouse of Europe, and not just the Netherlands, but also Denmark and the UK. And there's all these huge wind farms being built in the offshore--

in the North Sea.

All that power needs to go towards land, but then also towards all these cities and industrial zones.

But let's first talk about the cost. So we have quite a big problem. Because our grid fees are really high, especially over the last four years.

- As in the tariffs to the consumer?

- Exactly. Yeah, that's good to clarify. So it's not just--

it's not getting a grid connection, but it's the operational grid fees. And in the Netherlands and most European countries, the offtaker pays for all the grid costs.

And because of these huge grid reinforcements, these tariffs have been increasing and increasing. And especially also in 2022 and '23, when gas prices or energy prices were so high, the deasel, they had to buy--

they had spent also a lot of money on paying for all the grid losses and the imbalance.

So the tariffs, on a TSO level, have increased by a factor of four over the last years.

- Sorry. They are four times higher than they were a year ago?

- Yeah, yeah. So it's at for the TSO so for TenneT. So four times. So imagine, if you were developing a standalone battery, and one of your highest operational costs is grid fees.

And in four years, that number, which is already a large part of your operational cost, it doesn't multiply. It goes up by a factor of four.

And that's now. So currently, I looked it up.

What you pay annually is about 200K euro per megawatt. So think Quentin, you know pretty much you can make with a battery, right, on an annual basis. And it's about the same as this number. So try make up this huge amount with revenues.

It's almost impossible. It's almost impossible for these standalone batteries. And that's just not for the batteries only. It's industry, it's electrolyzers, anybody who's using electricity at high voltage level, they're having huge trouble with these high grid tariffs.

- Just a footnote here, we're actually going to put a link in the show notes to a LinkedIn post that you did about grid fees. That's well worth a look on this. But essentially, the business case is turned upside down by these fees, right?

- Yes. And if you calculate the business case of standalone battery four years ago, I think you'll be doing fine. But now, it's becoming more and more challenging for standalone batteries. And our neighbors, like Belgium and in Germany, they have these great exemptions.

So actually, batteries, for quite a long period of time, they don't pay any of these fees that we are. So there's a trend that, of course, investors and developers, they are moving abroad. Because if you look at the case for a standalone battery in Belgium, or Germany, or in Netherlands, then if you're a large European or worldwide investor, then you go to these countries.

And this is a real big national debate, not just about batteries, but how are we going to deal with these huge cost of grid reinforcement, and especially the cost for this infrastructure offshore? And who's going to pay for that? And yeah, that's one of the debates that's currently ongoing.

And last week, there was an announcement done by our regulator that they are now seriously looking into tariffs for generators. So generating assets. So actually wind farms, gas power plants, and solar farms, they're actually also going to contribute to these tariffs.

And that immediately leads to a huge debate, of course. Because if you're a wind farmer, you're not paying anything now, then it undermines your business case. So it's exciting.

- It's something that doesn't really get talked about much.

On a macro scale, within Europe, because Europe is so highly interconnected, there is an opportunity for particularly coastal states with a lot of offshore wind capacity potential to be, as you say, the powerhouse of Europe, and the Southern states or Southern countries, so I've been in the US too long, Southern countries with huge solar potential also being a powerhouse of Europe. And it's all to play for. But when it's not a level playing field on infrastructure and tariffs, that makes it more challenging.

- What's a bit unfair is that if countries around the North Sea, but also the Southern European countries generate huge amount of solar, then these countries, they pay for these huge investments. But if you--

- Do you mean infrastructure?

- Yes.

- Do you mean like grid? They have to--

- Grid infrastructure. Yes. I mean, the infrastructure. But if the Netherlands exports electricity to Belgium, then it's not like the Belgian people, all of a sudden, is paying for these infrastructure.

It's still--

I think--

and this is also one of the ideas that--

and this a big European reform that somehow, whenever you net import electricity, you should also contribute to these investment costs through tariffs.

But this means, like all European countries need to collaborate. And some countries, they are hardly paying anything. So I think it's going to be quite a debate. But it's maybe good to emphasize that although we tend to complain here that other countries surrounding us have a good--

have these exemptions and we don't, the Dutch TSOs, together with the DSO, and the TSO, and the regulator, they actually have come up with quite an innovative system, which is worth diving into.

So we don't have these exemptions. But there are ways to reduce these tariffs for batteries. And it's quite unique. So maybe it's interesting to dive into--

- Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah.

- How you can still make this business case work. So what they came up with is two things that are worth mentioning. So first one is dynamic tariffs.

So from this year, the tariffs are not flat. But depending on the season and the hour of the day, you have different tariff.

- Just to be specific here, which--

so we're talking about batteries connected to the grid in the Netherlands. And which tariffs are we talking about in action tariffs?

- It's if you off take electricity off the grid, you pay for, let's say, the operational use of--

- The grid connection tariffs. Yeah.

- So it's--

how do you call it?

- We call it--

yeah, so use of system. In the UK, it's Use of System tariffs. UOS. There's a TUOS, NUOS, and also UOS, and whatever.

- It's operational cost that you pay--

- Operational.

- --on a monthly basis, you pay the grid operator for the contracted capacity, but also how much you actually use. How much you--

- Yeah.

- Only off takers pay. So they call it dynamic tariffs or variable tariffs that they try to incentivize you to use electricity when there's a lot of solar or in certain seasons, which is, I think, a great thing.

All of us should become more familiar with using electricity when it's generated. And we are so spoiled in a way that we've always just been using electricity whenever we want it at any time. But I think that's really going to change in our new energy system.

And this tariff structure is stimulating you to use electricity at the right time. And therefore, you get a discount on your tariff. So that's one. And the second one is that you get a huge discount on your tariff.

If for 15% of the time, so 15% of the time, the grid operator can shut you down. So they can say 15% of the time, right now, you don't have access to the grid. And in return--

- Up to 15.

- Up to 15, they can pretty much say a day, a day ahead. So tomorrow, you don't have access. But then, you get about 50%.

So that's 50% of the time. Sorry, 50%, 50% discount on your tariff. So if you combine these two, so the variable tariffs and this discount in return for a downtime, it leads to about 75 reduction of these transport costs.

- So let me get this right. So the grid is saying to battery owner X, look, if up to 15% of the time I can switch you off, I want to give you a 50% reduction in all of your other connection, like tariffs.

- Yes.

- That's pretty. Well, it depends when, though, right. So assume they want to switch you off when the system is congested. And is that when it's peak demand, and is that when prices are high. And that's exactly the time that you want to be unlined.

- Yeah. And for this--

I mean, this is exactly the right question. So if that 15% of the time is exactly the time where this battery is making money or is it actually the time that batteries probably wouldn't be doing anything anyhow.

And that piece of the puzzle, we're still trying to figure out also. But we need a lot of input also from the TSO. And right now, I'm in the middle of the process, and also my colleagues are in the process of understanding that better and getting a clearer answer of TenneT, the TSO, when, what is the likelihood that will happen, and when. And it's still a bit uncertain.

- So that's the--

is this ATR 85?

- It is. It is. It's the--

exactly. It's the--

it's actually the alternative transport right. So you get--

it's a new kind of contract. And the 85 stands for 85% uptime.

Yeah, that's it. So everybody's talking about that in the Netherlands.

And when do we have an--

when do we--

so can you get that right now? The 85%?

- I think it will--

you can sign it already now. You can sign this contract now. I think it can only be really implemented in somewhere next year.

- We talked a lot about grid scale batteries on their own, standalone. What about co-location in the Netherlands? Because you've got all this solar right. And is there any subsidy mechanism or any regulatory benefit of being co-located? What's the deal with co-location?

- These tariffs, they are so high. Like I said, for so standalone batteries, they are trying to find a way to get their business case work and reach financial close at high voltage for super large batteries. But if you combine your battery with an generating asset, like wind, and solar, or even a power plant, or maybe a large consumer, like a data center, you can avoid these high costs by, how do you call it, behind the meter charging. And directly charge behind the meter from your generator.

And that makes the business case, for at least for co-located projects for wind energy, really interesting. So we are working on a lot of co-located batteries with wind.

There is no subsidy going on. We don't have any subsidy and no CapEx subsidy, no operational subsidy, nothing.

The only thing that the government has been talking about is giving a subsidy for batteries with solar. But that's still very unclear. So the rules of this subsidy, it's still--

we are waiting for it. But that's the only subsidy that regarding larger batteries, that the government has been talking about.

- And what about other stuff like--

let's just run through all of the hot potatoes. So capacity market, does the Netherlands have a capacity market?

- No. And quite recently--

so of course, Lars explained that Germany, they decided they're going to implement capacity market.

Our previous Dutch--

our previous minister decided, after consultation, not to implement the capacity market. It doesn't look like it's going to happen soon here.

And I think the Dutch gas power plants in the Netherlands, in 10 years from now, they would love to have a capacity mechanism. Because more and more of the time, they are just standby. They're just--

so they're there--

they have less and less time to generate revenues.

And on the other hand, they are still going to be quite crucial for some time for our economy. So you already know this now in the Netherlands that the owners of these large gas power plants, they are starting the debate about--

that their business model is ending. And I can imagine at some point, that's also going to be quite costly. Because we do need them still for some time.

And then who's going to pay for that just to keep them on standby? And maybe it's not a capacity market, but at least some kind of capacity--

like compensation or mechanism that allows them to run a viable business case.

- Yeah. I mean, in the UK what happened--

so the T minus one. So the one year ahead capacity market, I think, has been really successful because what it ended up doing was keeping thermal units online throughout winters, where they wouldn't have done otherwise. And we really needed them.

- Yeah.

- But then the long term contracts, we ended up--

what we wanted in the UK but no one would say out loud is we wanted new CCGTs.

And it's like it was a dirty thing to say out loud. You weren't allowed to actually say that, but we really need some efficient CCGTs. And it never really happened. But hey ho, that's me complaining about the capacity market done.

- So maybe it's nice to mention now that actually, we don't have any plans for new coal, of course. We're phasing out coal I think towards 2030.

There's no plans for new gas.

But the government wants two to four new nuclear power plants. So this is really interesting.

- Good for them. Rightly so.

- Yeah, you're in favor of having more--

- I'm a massive--

- It will be--

- I'm a huge fan of nuclear. Yeah, yeah.

- I think it will be--

in a way, it will be very good for the volatility of our market. So batteries will only profit. But society won't. I mean, it's extremely costly, and it's going to take way much time.

Nobody's talking about nuclear waste anymore. So yeah, it's fascinating.

- Let's go back to batteries. So there's no real subsidies. There's no capacity market.

- No.

- You guys have got frequency response markets. But the reserve and frequency response markets are not particularly deep. So how does the business case look for batteries beyond--

well, right now, with ancillary services and beyond?

- Yeah. So like I said also already in the beginning, so FCR is saturated. It's only about 100 megawatt, a bit more. So people are looking into other ancillary services. So AF, RR, imbalance market, and then energy trading, they had intraday.

And that obviously, you need, as I say, deeper batteries. So two hours, four hours batteries.

The forecast are always interesting. So of course, how much money you think you're going to make on these markets? And it's just then, of course, experts trying to give a forecast on what the future will bring. And it's like, how do you say--

like a glass bowl that you look in and try to convince everybody that that's going to happen. But you don't have any subsidy backing you up. So it's quite a high risk investment.

- So if the--

so if there's no capacity market, then how is supply being guaranteed? If we're going to play the devil's advocate, how is TenneT confident that you're going to have the capacity to get through the winters?

- So now mostly, they rely on gas. I think for quite some time, they will rely on the gas power plants. And then whenever sun is going down, and there's less wind, then the gas power plants ramp up. And then there's Lars say a European machine that interconnection using hydro, wind from other countries, nuclear from France is just--

we should all be connected and bring power, shift power through Europe.

And I find it very fascinating to look at the wind profiles of European countries. Actually, wind Europe. They just now--

I really like it. They announced--

have a dashboard, where you can see the generation mix of each country every day. And I try to look at it every day. And what's fascinating, it is about wind. It's always windy somewhere.

So if you have--

- It's always. 5 o'clock somewhere.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

- That too. Yeah. So it's just great that if this European grid is getting stronger and stronger, then you can actually really shift load profiles from one country to the other.

- And let's just to finish off, before we go to the last two questions, to come back, we talked about a lot of stuff today. But if we're going to wrap up into where are the opportunities for investment in storage in the Netherlands, we've got this mixed message, which is 70 gigs of batteries in the connection queue.

But a country with 15 to 20 gigs of peak demand, a ton more offshore wind coming in, highly constrained grid, particularly getting power from the West to the rest of Europe. So if you're an investor looking at this market, thinking we need to deploy some capital into some into the right assets, how do you think about answering that question?

- I would definitely go for co-location first. So I'm a big fan of sharing a grid connection. So as you mentioned, trying to transport all these--

the power from offshore wind towards these industrial zones is just crazy expensive. We should bring consumption and production together.

So I believe that these hybrid energy parks of wind, and solar, and storage combined in one grid connection, that that's the best investment. And it's also--

because of these high grid fees, best investment for placing batteries. Now, there's not enough co-located assets to, I think, grow towards the amount of gigawatts we're going to need for battery.

So standalone batteries are going to be needed. And I'm confident that we will get there. But if I would invest my money, it would be on combining a battery with a wind and solar farm.

- All right. You heard it here first.

Now, let's get to--

OK, this is your chance. If there's anything you want to plug or talk about, any news, any services, now's your time, Rens.

- No, I don't want to get commercial. I think what I want to share is that just be excited.

I've been working in this field now for about 16 years, and I started out as a young engineer and as a researcher. And all we were trying to do is make this technology viable, make it better, make it more cost-efficient, scale up.

And for a long time, we weren't so sure that it was actually going to happen. And now, for these last few years, if you see the exponential growth of solar, and wind, and batteries, it's just amazing.

So I think what I want to plug is that if you're just out of school and you start working, you're lucky. I mean, these are the exciting times. We're actually doing the energy transition these days. And it's just an amazing time to work in the field of renewables.

- So the thing you want to plug is basically just good vibes.

- Good vibes. I mean, it's really--

yeah, good vibes. I mean, and if you look at the figures of growth, of wind and solar, and batteries, it's just amazing. And yeah, just be happy about that. And it's not going to end.

This is--

there's no way back. I mean, there's just no way back. It's just going to continue to grow.

- I don't know whether you've met Neil from our team. He was one of our first employees, and he runs our research now. But when he first--

he chose his own job description when he joined the company. And he wanted to be the vibe curator. So Rens, you're the vibe curator for us.

And now, my favorite question, actually is, what's your contrarian view? So what's the thing that--

so there's loads--

there's a dog walking past behind me. There's people--

I don't know what's going on. But if you're watching this, then hopefully, it's entertaining. So, Rens, now to my final question, which is my favorite. What is your contrarian view?

So what do you believe that most other people don't?

- I love this question. It's really nice. It really makes you think.

So what I'm going to say is maybe not that contrarian, but I think it's good to repeat it. And maybe I'm in a certain bubble of people who believe in this as well. But I think it's worth mentioning.

What I believe is that we can truly power the world just through renewables and storage. So I think there's a lot of debate about that going on, whether that's actually possible. But I truly believe that this is feasible. And I'm all about electrification.

Everything should be electrified as much as we can. If it's mobility, I mean, it's just insane what you're seeing now with cars, and trucks, and heavy machines. And even aviation and ferries. It's just--

so electrification, heat, electrify it. Heat pumps, e-boilers, I think, up to quite high degrees

And then let's try this. First, make this energy transition that we're maybe 90% on renewables. And then the remaining 10% part, which I believe is a lot of attention is going towards it, like hydrogen, nuclear, sorry, Quentin. But also--

- Hold on, hold on, hold on. You can't put nuclear in the same bucket as hydrogen as most hydrogen projects.

- Most hydrogen projects, but also carbon capture. I think we're spending, at least policymakers are spending too much time on stuff that, of course, it's not--

it's important. But let's focus.

- Did you see what just happened in the UK, by the way? We just announced 22 billion quid for--

well, firstly, the new government came in, announced that the previous government had left a financial black hole of about 22 billion quid.

And then within weeks, announced they were going to give 22 billion quid's worth of subsidies to a load of projects. But primarily, yes. And it's just--

firstly, that's politically very silly to do. Secondly, it's just not good. It just--

there are so many things wrong with it. There's so many better ways to spend 22 billion quid.

- Yeah. And that, I think, maybe is the last point I want to make, which is maybe a bit contrarian. But what really strikes me is that there's a mismatch between what's actual investment, what's actually going on, like wind, solar, batteries, e-boilers, heat pumps, EVs, and policy.

It seems like policy makers, there's a mismatch between policy and which actually is happening. And on the one hand, I find it very annoying that if you count the number of times that the word hydrogen is being mentioned in a European document and the amount of time that a battery is being mentioned is just insane. But on the other hand, there's this--

and again, I'm going to be excited.

Because there's this undercurrent of people who actually know what they're doing and investors who actually know where to spend their money on. And that's just continuing. And policies change. They come and go. It varies a bit.

But the undercurrent is so strong that this change is just going forwards. And yeah, there's no way back. But what if policy, which is still very important, what if it would be actually in line what is really going on, what investments are actually being done right now? I think then what's the word after exponential?

I don't know. But it's just going to be--

so I find that very fascinating.

- Awesome. Well, you brought the vibes today, Rens, so thank you very much.

- You're most welcome.

- I want to say a huge thanks for joining us on the podcast. Today, we've covered most things about the Netherlands power market, but there's a load more to uncover. So hopefully, we'll have you on again when the market has grown a little bit, and we can talk about the success of the market and some of the outcomes of these things.

I really like ATR 85. That sounds like a cool way of running a grid to me. Essentially, you're buying an option on your connection, which is nice. But yeah, thanks for joining us. And we're going to put in the show notes a load of LinkedIn posts.

So if you're listening to this, and you want to find out more about Rens, definitely follow him on LinkedIn. Check out Ventolines, and check out these three particular posts. Thank you.

- Thanks for having me, Quentin.

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