When solar becomes dispatchable
There is a quiet revolution happening on 7 hectares of pasture near Fleurus. Fifty sheep graze beneath rows of solar panels. A 5 MWh battery hums underground. And for the first time in Wallonia, a solar project doesn't just produce electricity — it delivers it on demand.
This is Soleilmont. And Epon Energy is proud to be part of it.
What makes Soleilmont different
Developed by Etherra, Soleilmont is Wallonia's first Firm Solar & Storage (FSS) project — a category that combines solar generation with co-located battery storage to turn variable renewable output into something fundamentally more useful: controllable, bankable electricity.
The numbers are significant on their own:
- 9,200 photovoltaic panels across 7 hectares near Heppignies (Fleurus)
- 6,000 MWh/year of clean electricity — enough for approximately 1,700 households
- 5 MWh / 3.5 MW of battery storage, integrated from day one
- 445 metres of hedgerows planted, reinforcing local biodiversity
- 50 sheep from a Gerpinnes farm, grazing freely under and between the panels
But the technical achievement that matters most to us is less about scale and more about architecture. By co-designing storage into the project from the start — rather than bolting it on later — Etherra built an asset that can do something most solar parks cannot: choose when to inject electricity into the grid.
The role of Epon Energy
Producing renewable electricity is necessary. Monetising it intelligently is what makes a project economically resilient.
Epon Energy's contribution to Soleilmont sits at the intersection of energy markets and asset optimisation. Our role is to valorise Soleilmont's storage capacity through Belgian flexibility markets — specifically:
- Imbalance market participation: actively responding to real-time system imbalances managed by Elia, Belgium's transmission system operator
- Intraday and day-ahead optimisation: shifting stored energy to periods of higher value rather than injecting whenever the sun shines
This is not passive management. It requires treating the battery as a dispatchable grid asset — one that earns revenue not just from the energy it stores, but from the services it renders to the broader system.
For Etherra, this means Soleilmont generates value on two distinct axes: the electricity it produces, and the flexibility it provides. The combination materially improves project economics and makes the FSS model replicable at scale.
Why this collaboration makes sense
Epon Energy was founded on a simple conviction: the energy assets that will matter most in the coming decade are those designed for flexibility from the outset.
Our own infrastructure — GPU compute colocation powered by solar, battery storage, and a 3 MW grid connection in Wallonia — is built on the same logic. We don't just consume energy; we engineer our position in the market, participating in imbalance settlement as a behind-the-meter asset. We understand the complexity of operating in these markets because we navigate them ourselves.
Soleilmont reflects the same philosophy, applied to utility-scale renewable generation. When Etherra approached us, the fit was natural.
Wallonia has long had the regulatory framework and the renewable ambition to support projects like this. What has been missing is the operational layer — the energy trading and flexibility expertise needed to extract full value from assets that were designed to provide it. That gap is exactly where Epon operates.
A model worth replicating
Agrivoltaism — the combination of solar energy production with active agricultural use — is not new in Belgium, but Soleilmont raises the bar. The site maintains functioning sheep farming with rotational grazing across three fenced parcels, using grass and clover varieties adapted to partial shade. No concrete was used in the panel foundations. The land remains permeable, biologically active, and agriculturally productive.
Add a co-located battery, active grid services participation, and a local energy market optimisation layer, and you have something genuinely new: a rural energy project that is simultaneously a farm, a power plant, and a grid flexibility asset.
This is what the energy transition looks like when it's engineered properly — not just built.
Looking ahead
Soleilmont is operational as of May 2026. The flexibility valorisation work is underway. And we are already looking at what comes next: more FSS projects, more storage assets in need of active market participation, more opportunities to demonstrate that Wallonia can be a European leader not just in renewable capacity, but in renewable intelligence.
If you're developing storage-coupled renewable assets in Belgium or neighbouring markets and want to explore what active flexibility valorisation could mean for your project economics, we'd welcome the conversation.
→ Discover the Soleilmont project: etherra.com/projet/soleilmont