With the granting of a permit by the municipality of Terneuzen, the installation of a large-scale behind-the-meter energy storage system at Zonnepark Bontepolder is becoming a reality. The battery, developed by Novar and its partners, is intelligently controlled to increase the flexibility of the municipality’s energy mix. The innovative integration of the grid, battery, and solar park is unique—it enables real-time responses to market conditions, resulting in a more stable power grid. This allows a relatively small grid connection to be used with maximum efficiency for feeding green energy back into the grid.
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Battery storage is the solution to the growing problem of grid congestion and imbalances between supply and demand in the electricity market. This is because grid congestion often occurs only at certain times of the day or year; the rest of the time, the grid is stable enough to balance supply and demand. During periods of congestion or supply-demand imbalance, battery storage can, depending on the situation, either store electricity from the grid or feed it back into the grid.
“Novar’s mission is to make the energy market greener. Battery storage will play a major role in this in the coming years. We are focusing on batteries at various levels of the electricity transmission system. For example, we will install batteries behind the meter at our solar parks to make more efficient use of transmission capacity at the local level. But we will also develop large-scale systems at the national transmission level to alleviate congestion issues and imbalances in the electricity market.”
Jan Martijn Buruma – Director of Storage, Hydrogen & Smart Grids at Novar
In June, Novar began construction of a large-scale solar park on the former Bontepolder landfill in Terneuzen. Once construction of the park nears completion in mid-November 2022, the large-scale 5 MW/5 MWh battery will be installed. The park covers a total area of 11.8 hectares. In this way, we are repurposing the former landfill for a socially relevant goal: generating more sustainable energy and ensuring smarter use of the electricity produced through the use of a battery. The 31,962 panels will supply renewable energy to more than 4,600 households. This will make a significant contribution to the sustainability goals of both the municipality of Terneuzen and the province of Zeeland.
“We do see that energy storage is becoming increasingly important and that developments are moving quickly. Our zoning plans take into account the addition of a storage system at the site. This is a positive development for the grid operator, the project developer, and the municipality alike. It enables us to achieve our climate goals. For us, this project serves as a great example for other sustainability initiatives involving storage.”
Ir. G. (Glenny) Davidse – Sustainability & Climate Policy Officer
No subsidies are provided for energy storage projects in the Netherlands. Ensuring a financially sound operating model for the battery is therefore of great importance. By connecting and intelligently managing these assets (solar farm and battery) in an integrated manner, you can optimize operations locally, help balance the regional power grid, and offer new flexibility services to the energy trading and capacity markets. All of these services fall under a new market role: the Flex Service Provider (FSP).
Repowered is the Flex Service Provider for this battery and operates, optimizes, and manages energy trading. Using advanced algorithms, the battery is deployed to provide ancillary services to the grid operator for grid balancing and to trade on the imbalance market. For local optimization and actual control of the battery and the solar farm, Repowered has integrated with Spectral’s Smart Grid Platform. This control takes into account a variety of external factors: how much power can currently be generated given the current solar irradiance, how much capacity is available on the grid, what the real-time charge status of the batteries is, and what the current demand for energy is. This ensures optimal utilization of the existing grid connection and also makes a crucial contribution to stabilizing the power grid.
“At Repowered, we are very excited about this project and grateful for the trust and collaboration with Novar. Together with Spectral, we can demonstrate how the battery adds value to the solar farm while also making an important societal contribution by stabilizing the power grid.”
Dirk Jan Masselink – Co-founder of Repowered
Multifunctional land use is a broad concept. It encompasses multiple societal uses within an area: sociocultural, ecological, economic, and physical aspects. The link between generation and storage also falls under this category. This is fully in line with Minister Jetten’s 2022 Solar Letter. This letter outlines the policy program for solar PV, which states that multifunctional land use is the standard for onshore solar projects, given the importance of carefully managing the limited space available in the Netherlands.
“The Bontepolder project demonstrates that energy storage, combined with smart technology and smart trading, creates value in both the short and (medium) long term. That’s good news for the operation and the impact of a solar park. As an impact-driven technology company, we wholeheartedly welcome projects like this! We are delighted that this marks the start of our collaboration with Novar and Repowered and look forward to many more exciting joint sustainable innovation projects.”
Tom Westra – Founder, Spectral
Parties involved
Alfen, ASN Bank, the Municipality of Terneuzen, Spectral, Novar, and Repowered
Last updated on September 23, 2025
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