Projects and deals in the European energy storage market
RWE puts Solar Plus storage systems into operation on a lignite opencast mine in NRW
Multinational energy company RWE has commissioned a solar plus storage project at its Inden brown coal opencast mine in the district of Düren, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany.
The bifacial PV array has a capacity of 14.4 MW, while the connected Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) will provide 9.6 MWh of energy storage capacity and around 4.8 MW of power.
The BESS is used to optimize the feeding of the solar PV into the power grid. The project has gone online A few months later than originally expected.
RWE is Construction of two similar blocks at another nearby brown coal mine, Garzweileras reported by Energy storage.news recently, which will total 10.6 MW/21.1 MWh of energy storage.
By 2030, the company wants to install at least 500 MW in the Rhenish lignite mining area, an area with three large opencast lignite mines that it operates in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Use of battery storage on a grid scale in Germany expected to eclipse a total of 200 MW last year, a record for the market and the second highest addition in Europe after the UK, which installed around 760 MW (figure from UK Battery Storage Project Database Report by Solar Media Market Research).
Rabobank invests in Dutch system integrator GIGA Storage
Rabobank has taken a minority stake in GIGA Storage, a developer who recently commissioned the largest BESS project to date in the Netherlandsprovided by Wärtsilä.
Rabobank said the investment will allow GIGA Storage to expand its network of large-scale energy storage projects.
The company’s two deployments so far total 57 MWh of energy storage, but the company claims it has developed a project pipeline of 12,500 MWh in Belgium and the Netherlands, with 420 MWh to be built in the near future.
“GIGA Storage is a pioneer in the large energy storage industry in the Benelux. We are proud to continue to shape our partnership with GIGA as an investor. This will allow them to significantly scale up both their battery projects and the self-developed IT platform to facilitate further integration of renewable energy into the Benelux power grid,” said Francis Quint, Global Head of Rabo Investments.
Continue reading Energy storage.news Coverage of the energy storage market in the Netherlands here. As we reported, was the largest facility that was built recently announced by Rolls-Royce’s BESS division.
The Swiss canton relies on energy storage
AEW Energie, the energy supplier of the Swiss canton of Aargau, is expanding its grid with a 5.5 MW/10 MWh BESS unit to support energy security and decarbonization.
Hitachi Energy was contracted to provide the system, although the press release was unclear as to whether the system had just been ordered or had already been brought online. A spokesman said it was most likely the latter and Energy storage.news will update this article once confirmation is received.
The BESS order includes Hitachi Energy’s intelligent automation software, the E-Mesh portfolio, which offers advanced analytics, software and digital capabilities.
AEW will use the BESS as a learning platform to improve grid stability and add distributed energy resources (DERs) to its operations. Looking to the future, it also wants to use energy storage to optimize EV charging, introduce virtual power plants (VPPs) and trade energy.
René Soland, Head of Business Unit Grids AEW Energie AG, said: “The exciting thing is that BESS can open up new ways for us to orchestrate, optimize and manage our existing infrastructure, as well as a way into the future, especially with more renewable energy and the expected increase in electrification in many industries.”
Switzerland has been relatively quiet in the world of energy storage news, but last year it commissioned a 20 GWh pumped power station in the Valais mountainsone of the largest online systems in the world. See all other Swiss market covers here.
Solar Media, publisher of Energy-Storage.news, will host the eighth annual event Energy Storage Summit EU in London, 22-23. February 2023. This year it is moving to a larger venue, bringing together leading investors, policy makers, developers, utilities, energy buyers and service providers from across Europe in one place. Visit the official website for more information.