Back to visit Yuso’s first battery customer in Belgium

D’Haeze is a household name in bakery products. A few years ago, the business was taken over by the Dutch market leader in bakery raw materials, Beko Groothandel. Jan and Piet D’Haeze, managers since 1992, stayed on board for a while to ensure a smooth transition.

He bought the battery from Yuso in 2021 and this was Poweroad’s first battery on European soil at the time. ‘There’s a photo of this battery on the wall in the Poweroad offices in China,’ says Jelle Decraene, laughing. At the time, he installed this battery together with Thijs Delerue of Yuso, an expert in electrical installations.

And that did not go nearly as smoothly as it does now: ‘We still had to connect all the cells to the battery cabinet ourselves. At the time, I advised Poweroad to deliver the batteries fully assembled in cabinets. They agreed to do so and from then on all batteries were delivered in that way. Back then, we even had to re-tighten all the bolts that held the batteries in place! They would come a little loose because of the vibrations during transport. Fortunately, Poweroad has solved that problem with all successive batteries. Now this is better attached so that everything stays nicely in place.’

In the meantime, the installation at D’Haeze has been expanded with a 2nd generation Poweroad battery.

Piet D’Haeze was able to experience from up close that both Yuso and Jelle Decraene are driven to deliver good products. During those first days of delivery, Thijs and Jelle were busy day and night installing the battery. Now that’s hard to imagine because these days Poweroad batteries are delivered virtually plug & play. But back then it was all new.

This learning curve and intense cooperation has of course strengthened the relationship of trust between Poweroad and Jelle Decraene. As an official distributor of Poweroad, Jelle has direct contact with the Engineering department of Poweroad. This means that all issues are quickly resolved and end customers have access to fast and high-quality support. GridSync therefore offers service contracts of 5 or 10 years to the end customer for all batteries sold.

Piet D’Haeze is very pleased with the cooperation with Yuso; he has been a Yuso customer since the installation of his solar panels in 2018. In the meantime, the battery and charging infrastructure have been added and Yuso also supplies the energy to D’Haeze.

Since the recent expansion of the charging infrastructure with an ABB 360 kW DC fast charger, the battery also serves as a buffer tank to supply the power required for the charging session.

He is not convinced about ‘PV curtailment’, Yuso's control system in which the solar panels are switched off in the event of negative imbalance prices.

He thinks it is better to expand the capacity of batteries in Belgium so that excess energy can be stored for later use. A noble thought – which Yuso shares, by the way – but which brings little in the way of financial returns. The fact that curtailment of solar panels is acceptable to many can be seen from the rapid growth in curtailment contracts: in the space of a month, Yuso’s portfolio of solar panels with curtailment has already risen to 3 MW.

About GridSync

GridSync, Jelle Decraene’s company, specialises in Poweroad batteries and supplies large installers and electrical wholesalers. This always includes support from quote to commissioning of the battery, and each battery is sold including 5 or 10 years of service. The end customer is therefore assured of a high-quality purchase with a guarantee of proper functioning. This is unique in the market, where the sale of batteries is increasingly becoming a race for the lowest price, without support to the end customer after installation.