About the company
Verhelst Group is a family-owned construction group from Ostende with roots dating back to 1925. Four generations later, the company has grown into a total partner for professional construction projects, active throughout Belgium. With divisions in road and sewerage works, demolition and asbestos removal, earthworks and remediation, sand extraction, asphalt production, recycling and construction machinery rental, the group brings all construction expertise under one roof. Today Verhelst Group employs around 480 people and is one of the leading players in the Belgian construction sector.
Three challenges
1. Large production, variable self-consumption
The extensive rooftop surface of the Verhelst sites produces more solar energy than the internal processes can consume at any given moment. Without active management, a large share is injected onto the grid at low prices.
2. Profitability in a volatile energy market
Electricity market prices fluctuate strongly, putting pressure on the payback of solar assets. The Verhelst group wants to keep the long-term business case of solar robust — even at low or negative market prices.
3. Focus on the core business
As an industrial group, Verhelst wants to focus on construction, transport and logistics — not on the day-to-day management of energy assets, price hedging and flexibility services. That calls for a specialised partner.
Verhelst Group
“They chose CleverNett as their partner to manage the renewable energy they generate on their roofs and sell the electricity surpluses on the market. We focused specifically on the future of solar energy: how to keep solar energy profitable in a fluctuating market and attractive enough for businesses.”
In the field
CleverNett manages the solar installations on the Verhelst site as one smart system: the electricity produced is first maximised behind the meter for the industrial processes, and the surpluses are actively traded on the market. At the Energiek Ostende event, CleverNett explained how solar, battery storage and flexibility services (PPAs, imbalance, congestion management) keep the business case robust even in a fluctuating market.