Eneco, Mitsubishi to build 48 MW/50 MWh battery in Germany

Dutch utility Eneco Holding NV and Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp (TYO:8058) will build a 48 MW/50 MWh battery in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein to serve as a primary reserve provider and to store extra wind power.

The companies said today construction will commence in the summer, with operation planned to start by the end of the year. The Lithium-Ion battery system will be supplied and integrated by NEC Energy Solutions (NEC ES), a unit of Japan's NEC Corp (TYO:6701).

The EnspireME project in the municipality of Jardelund will help reduce the use of thermal power plants for backup power. Initially, the energy storage facility will mainly serve the primary reserve market. In addition, Eneco and Mitsubishi will connect to the battery wind farms located in the area so as to store wind power in cases of surplus capacity or grid overload. The pilot wind connection project will be realised with the support of the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

With over 50 GW of wind power capacity, Germany is first in Europe. Most of that capacity, however, is in the north. Schleswig-Holstein, for example, has 6.45 GW of onshore wind farms, ranking second after the state of Lower Saxony. The government has been forced to limit future deployment in the north so as to have time to upgrade the grid to carry wind power to consumers in the south.

“Although, fortunately, the share of sustainable energy is increasing rapidly, it does pose a challenge for the energy grid. In our view, the solution to this is twofold: smart matching of supply and demand and a combination of small-scale and large-scale energy storage,” said Kees-Jan Rameau, Chief Strategic Growth Officer at Eneco Group.

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