Season 1 | Ep12 Laurens van Ochten on How R.Power Centralised Their BESS Team and Why Easy Grid Access is Not Always a Good Thing

In this episode of the REM Podcast, host Tom speaks with Laurens van Ochten, Head of BESS at R.Power, a fast‑growing European renewable energy developer specialising in large‑scale solar and battery storage.Laurens shares deep insights into the challenges of scaling battery storage across multiple countries, while managing market differences, grid bottlenecks and team structure. He also explains why R.Power chose to centralise their entire BESS team.They talk about:Why easy grid access in Germany backfired, and what other countries can learn from itHow “paper projects” are hurting hiring, planning, and long-term confidenceWhy Portugal is ahead of other markets when it comes to hybridisationWhat makes a BESS project actually work in real-life conditionsAnd why bureaucracy isn’t always a bad thing when it comes to project qualityConnect with Tom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomessex/Connect with Laurens: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurensvanochten/