This summer, construction will start on the GIGA Giraffe battery on Westhavenweg, which will be connected to Liander's Sextantweg substation. All signals for construction are green. For example, there is a connection agreement with Liander, a permit with the municipality, a long-term lease agreement with the Port of Amsterdam and the financing has also been completely completed.
The battery will use the reserve capacity on the transport network, preventing transport restrictions. The battery will be connected in the first quarter of 2025.
In the opinion of GIGA Storage, there are many hundreds of places in the Netherlands where the combination of a battery at a substation can support the network. If one considers the published congestion maps , the Dutch electricity grid appears to be filling up, but GIGA Storage sees this differently. This has to do with the fact that we in the Netherlands want and have almost 100% security of supply. As a result, the network is not used optimally for a large part of the year and there is a lot of space left. Batteries can use this space and ‘step in' when peaks arise in demand or generation of sustainable energy.
The GIGA Giraffe is a 10 MW and 45 MWh storage project and enables the electricity network to store the energy peaks during sunny hours and keep the energy system in balance with a growing share of unpredictable but sustainable energy generation. What is special is that this battery can charge or discharge for four hours, making it suitable for participating in the Dutch day-ahead and intraday electricity markets.
Daniela Fahrenkrog, Business Development Director of GIGA Storage:
“ We are pleased that, in addition to all our efforts on the high-voltage grids in the Netherlands and Belgium, we are now also realizing a battery on the medium-voltage grid of Liander. This 4-hour battery will power GIGA Storage completely itself. This gives us the flexibility to participate in the different electricity and balancing markets, depending on where the value lies at that moment. With this we have created a profitable future-proof business model.”
