New agreement facilitates grid connection sharing for wind, solar and energy storage

The Cable Pooling Agreement (CPO)

The CPO contains provisions for sharing a single connection for wind, solar and storage projects. The agreement addresses all the necessary preconditions that need to be in place, concerning project realisation, fees, the relationship with the grid operator, metering, programme responsibility, the return of installations, financing and liability.

Invest-NL asked Ventolines to draw up the CPO containing provisions on energy storage. Rens Savenije, System Integration Business Lead at Ventolines: “Ventolines assists clients in developing, constructing and managing renewable energy projects. In our line of work, we see and experience the social necessity and technical feasibility of cable pooling. But initiators actually need to be able to set to work on this. To that end, we drew up an agreement in 2021 to share a single grid connection for wind and solar farms. Energy storage did not feature in the agreement at the time. However, energy storage has been added to the CPO published today.”

Working towards more efficient gris use

As a client, Invest-NL was closely involved in drawing up the CPO with provisions on storage. Diederik Apotheker, senior business development manager at Invest-NL: “We have noticed that solar and wind energy producers are eager to get started on energy storage but still have many questions about how to do so. Invest-NL sees it as its task to support entrepreneurs with that. This agreement now allows us to provide the necessary tools to do this through a single connection.”

Energy Storage NL, the association for the Dutch energy storage sector, is pleased with the new agreement. Jeroen Neefs, Branch Manager at Energy Storage NL: “We have noticed that the Dutch electricity grid is becoming increasingly full. We therefore need to work towards greater grid use efficiency. We cannot do that without using energy storage. We therefore hope that this agreement will ensure that storage technology is deployed even more widely in the Netherlands.”

Elisabetta Aarts, Chief Legal Officer at Ventolines: “It is important to clarify that the legal framework for cable pooling can also be applied to storage. The Dutch Electricity Act 1998 currently only mentions the option for wind and/or solar farms. Storage seems to have been overlooked.”