AI-generated picture of a large Battery Energy Storing System (BESS)
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Utility business RWE is further expanding its battery storage business worldwide. The company has now finalized its investment decision for a Dutch battery storage project with an installed power capacity of 35 megawatts (MW) and a storage capacity of 41 megawatt-hours (MWh). A total of 110 lithium-ion battery racks are to be installed at RWE’s biomass plant in  Eemshaven on an area of around 3,000 square meters. RWE plans to invest approximately  24 million euros. 

  • Utility company RWE will install a 35MW battery storage system in the Netherlands.
  • The company is investing 24 million euros.
  • Construction is to start in late 2023, and operations in 2025.

The battery project is an important step towards a portfolio of innovative demand assets to optimally integrate the weather-related fluctuating power generation profile of the  “OranjeWind” offshore wind farm into the Dutch energy system. In 2022, RWE had secured the implementation of the offshore project off the Dutch coast with a system integration concept that combines the wind farm with the generation of green hydrogen and other solutions such as battery storage. 

The system

Roger Miesen, CEO of RWE Generation: “With the increasing share of renewable energies in  the electricity mix, the demand for flexible battery storage is also rising. With this large-scale  project, RWE is gaining experience in the marketing of energy storage systems on the Dutch  energy markets and is actively contributing towards stabilising the Dutch electricity grid.” 

The planned battery storage facility can operate at its installed capacity of 35 MW for over an hour. This is sufficient to charge around 800 EVs. The system has been designed to be virtually coupled across technologies with RWE power plants in the Netherlands. This enables optimal management of balancing energy, which can be supplied by selected units either individually or as a group. The battery storage system receives excess power from the electricity grid and feeds it back into the system when required in order to maintain the necessary grid frequency.

© RWE

Battery storage@RWE 

Battery storage systems are essential to the energy transition – they store the leftover electricity from surplus production and make it available again when needed. As one of the leaders of the energy transition, RWE develops, builds, and operates battery storage systems in Europe, Australia, and the US. RWE aims to build more than three gigawatts of batteries by 2030. RWE benefits from its many years of experience with battery storage systems and is therefore taking care of the detailed planning, modeling, system integration, and commissioning of the projects directly and entirely on its own.  

In Germany, RWE commissioned its mega battery in Lingen and Werne, with a total capacity of  117 MW, at the beginning of 2023. The company plans to virtually connect this battery storage system with its run-of-river power plants on the Moselle River. A 220-MW battery storage system is currently under construction at RWE’s Neurath and Westfalen power plants. In March,  the company acquired British developer JBM Solar, with an advanced development pipeline of  2.3 gigawatts of battery storage projects. At its German opencast mines, RWE is implementing innovative PV-storage plants. Recently, RWE won an Australian tender for a storage facility (50 MW/400 MWh).