Flanders waits while Brussels builds

A new (Brussels) record

In the Brussels-Capital Region, we completed dozens of installations. But the icing on the cake? The roofs of ‘Brussels Expo’. In late autumn, we received a phone call. An installer, who had agreed to put more than 10,000 solar panels on their roofs, was unable to fulfil his promise. So, we were asked if we could take over. This meant working on the sloping, difficult roofs of the exhibition halls in the rain and the cold, as everything had to be built and inspected before the end of December, due to the support measures from the Region being scaled back in 2023. Everyone declared that it was impossible – so, naturally, we immediately said yes. On 26 December, the last solar panel was finally installed, allowing the inspector to come and check our work. And thus, we added another success story to our name: the halls and concert venues of Brussels Expo now boast more than 4.7 MWp of solar panels, installed on the most complex of rooftops, in the wind, rain and icy conditions of Belgian autumn. A few thousand more solar panels are to be added in the near future, which will make Brussels Expo the largest solar farm in the Brussels-Capital Region (the current holder of that title is also one of ours). This tremendous achievement is a true testament to our qualities: communication, collaboration, extreme flexibility and the best project management team in all of Belgium!

Read the news report of the inauguration on our website here.

China

The pandemic revisited (but with many solar panels)

While Europe was ravaged by high energy prices and the war in Ukraine, China was left unscathed. However, at the same time, the country had been hit by one lockdown after another. While interest in projects remained high, lockdown and quarantine measures resulted in prolonged sales cycles and installation timescales. Existing customers required to periodically repay part of their investment experienced operational cash flow problems due to their factories having to close for a number of weeks, delaying repayments in a number of cases. New customers became hesitant and postponed their decisions, while our employees spent several weeks at home every few months.

Despite these obstacles (and grumbles from our Chinese and Belgian teams), a total of 67.5 MW was installed, funded by Belgium, together with another 50 MW installed from our Chinese branch. The latter follows a new model, where we place a bundle of installations on public and private buildings located within the same region, before handing the bundle over to the local authorities in one go once completed and delivered. To set up this new model, our Chinese CEO Eric Zhang came to Belgium for one week in the spring. He endured a long trip back, via Hong Kong among other places, and ended up in quarantine for six weeks. But it was all worth it: we installed 50 MW following this new model in 2022, and in 2023, this figure is set to increase threefold. As for Eric, he received some extra Belgian chocolate to help him through quarantine. :)