Shell to build 100 MW hybrid wind-solar project

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Shell has revealed plans to construct a hybrid wind-solar energy facility at an unspecified location in the Netherlands. The installation will consist of a 50 MW solar park and a 50 MW wind farm. They will both share the same connection point.

“This complementary nature of solar and wind can stabilize the intermittent nature of the energy production and maximize grid connection utilization, leading to significant benefits in terms of dispatchability, flexibility, and reliability,” Shell said, in reference to the grid capacity issues that are currently affecting renewable energy development in the country.

The project is being developed with the support of UK-based Inaccess, which will provide the monitoring system to optimize plant operations. The solution will provide low-level distributed control architecture and grid interaction, as well as data acquisition and scalability. It will also be able to identify cases of underperformance, minimize imbalance costs, and maximize the energy capture price.

“The integrated nature of the Unity system ensures ‘no-excuses' accurate monitoring, control and optimization and acts as the single version of truth among the EPC, O&M, asset management, and market management ecosystem, thus eliminating inefficiencies,” said Shell.

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In April 2021, the Dutch solar energy association, Holland Solar, the NWEA wind energy trade group, and the association of energy cooperatives, Energie Samen, defined a model agreement to help owners of large-scale wind and solar power assets to share the same connection points, in order to address grid capacity issues. PV and wind plant owners can negotiate the conditions as if they were starting from zero under the model agreement. This includes planning, contracting with the grid operator, and building and managing common infrastructure for shared connections.

Sweden's Vattenfall commissioned its first hybrid, utility scale wind-photovoltaic-storage project in the Dutch province of South Holland in March.

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