RWE confirms 35 MW/ 41 MWh BESS at its biomass plant in Netherlands

German energy firm RWE has announced its first utility-scale battery storage project in the Netherlands at an investment of about € 24 million. With an installed power capacity of 35 MW and a storage capacity of 41 MWh, the system with a total of 110 lithium-ion battery racks will be installed at RWE's biomass plant in Eemshaven in the north of the Netherlands.

The battery project is a significant 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, claims RWE. 

In 2022, the company 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.

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Commenting on the development, Roger Miesen, CEO RWE Generation and Country Chair for the Netherlands, "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."

According to the company, the proposed battery storage facility can operate at its installed capacity of 35 MW for over an hour, sufficient to charge around 800 EVs. The system has been designed to be virtually coupled across technologies with RWE power plants across the country. 

This enables optimal management of balancing energy, which can be supplied by selected units either individually or as a group, RWE notes. 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 required grid frequency.

It is to be noted that RWE is developing battery storage systems in Europe, Australia and the US. The company aims to build more than 3 GW of batteries by 2030. Quite recently, RWE commissioned its mega battery storage in Lingen and Werne in Germany, with a total capacity of 117 MW.