The week of March 10, BASQUENERGY Cluster, along with associated companies EVSARE, INGETEAM, ORMAZABAL, VELTIUM, and Basque companies BASQUEVOLT, GERTEK, and IRIZAR e-mobility, participated in a mission organized by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Spain, focusing on electric mobility.
The Netherlands is experiencing the most significant deployment of electric mobility in Europe. The country needs it. It faces constant grid congestion issues, and electric mobility is expected to play a relevant role in stabilizing it. During the mission, Dutch companies and entities highlighted these problems and the plans to deploy solutions nationwide.
The mission commenced on March 11 with a presentation event on the electric mobility market situation in the Netherlands and its development prospects at the Spanish Embassy in the Netherlands, where various Dutch and Spanish companies shared experiences and fostered networking with the Basque companies. The delegation subsequently moved to the Intertraffic fair, one of Europe’s largest mobility events, visiting the fair’s stands and acquiring new information at the Netherlands stand regarding smart charging and grid congestion in the country.
The following day, the delegation visited ALFEN’s new factory, a developer of charging points and electrical substations, where they observed the manufacturing lines for charging points, one of the largest witnessed by the participating companies. The delegation then proceeded to the country’s largest electrical storage project, FlevoBESS, developed by ALFEN itself. The project is connected to an onshore wind farm, comprising batteries from CATL. That same afternoon, they visited Elaadnl, a pioneering testing center for electric vehicle charger tests in Europe. The center works with charging infrastructure operators and tests these infrastructures to offer its analysis to manufacturing companies. Finally, the day concluded with a visit to Milence, a developer of charging stations in Europe for electric trucks.
On the last day of the mission, the delegation visited VDL ETS, a company part of the VDL group, dedicated to developing innovative projects in electric mobility, energy storage, and hydrogen. The mission concluded with a visit to Rotterdam’s tram, metro, and bus operator, learning about their vehicle fleet electrification project and grid flexibility through storage systems.
Throughout the mission, BASQUENERGY Cluster represented Basque companies in the electric vehicle charging value chain and collaborated with BASQUETRADE and the Embassy of the Netherlands in defining the mission and managing the companies during it.