Plans unveiled for Netherlands’ largest battery

Dutch energy utility Eneco and Netherlands-based battery provider Giga Storage have announced a plan to deploy a 24 MW/48 MWh battery near Lelystad, in the province of Flevoland, which is one of the country's regions most affected by grid constraints.

Construction on the storage facility is planned to begin this year, with project completion scheduled for the autumn of 2022.

Called Giga Buffalo, the project has an annual storage capacity of around 30,000 MWh and will be used by Eneco to forecast supply-demand errors on the intraday trading market. The project will be located close to the Wageningen University & Research and will be connected to the local Windnet smart grid.

Eneco and Giga Storage last year deployed the 12 MW Giga Rhino battery relying on technology provided by NEC Energy Solutions at the site.

“For Eneco, being able to balance the supply and demand of energy, the intraday positions, is vital in order to be able to realize the further integration of sustainable means of production,” said Lucien Wiegers, Eneco Energy Trade's commercial director. “Storage of energy in batteries that are available 24/7 will play an important role in this, so we are delighted with the development of GIGA Buffalo, which at the same time also enables us to make significant CO2 savings.”