RWE has finished installing a megabattery project at two of its power plants.
Work on the 117MW/128MWh battery system was completed in 14 months, with a total of 420 blocks of lithium-ion batteries installed at RWE power plant sites in Lingen (Lower Saxony, 49MWh) and Werne (North Rhine-Westphalia,79 MWh).
The new system is capable of delivering the specified power for around an hour.
The system has a virtual connection with RWE’s run-of-river power plants along the Moselle River. By selectively regulating the flow rate at these plants, RWE can provide additional power as balancing energy.
As a result, the total capacity of power available for grid stabilisation in this system increases by up to 15%.
The battery storage system has already fed electricity into the grid and is currently going through a trial run. Commercial operation is scheduled to start in the next few days.
The company has invested around €50m into the megabattery project.
Roger Miesen, CEO of RWE Generation, said: “With the increasing expansion of renewable energies, Germany needs innovative storage solutions on an industrial scale that can step in when the wind and sun are not supplying.
“In terms of size and technology, we are setting benchmarks in this country with our mega-battery. The completed battery storage facilities and our hydroelectric power plants on the Moselle will work hand in hand in the future to help stabilise the electricity grid.”