| Energy storage RWE prioritises storage
RWE reports that “Germany’s first megabattery” is complete. It has a capacity of 117 MW (128 MWh), and consists of 420 blocks of lithium-ion batteries located at two power plant sites, with 49 MWh at Lingen (Lower Saxony) and 79 MWh at Werne (North Rhine-Westphalia), “intelligently linked” to RWE’s run- of-river power plants on the Moselle River. Building on extensive in-house experience with energy storage systems, RWE says it “took exclusive control of project planning, modelling, system integration and commissioning.” At the end of 2022, RWE announced a positive investment decision for a new virtually networked 220 MW (235 MWh) battery storage project in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, with 80 MW at Neurath and 140 MW at Hamm. Subject to permitting, construction is scheduled to start in 2023 and commissioning is planned for 2024. RWE says these new battery systems will be “networked virtually” with its German power plants. As with Lingen/Werne, RWE is providing detailed project design, modelling, system integration and commissioning for Neurath/Hamm.
As well as Germany, RWE is developing, building, and operating battery storage systems elsewhere in Europe, Australia, and the USA. It currently has about 270 MW (280 MWh) in operation, and completion is underway on about 700 MW (1700 MWh). It aims to have about 3 GW of storage capacity in operation worldwide by 2030. In the course of 2022, RWE commissioned a battery storage system in Ireland of 60 MW, and
Renewable Power Capital enters UK battery storage market in Eelpower JV
Renewable Power Capital (RPC), the pan-European renewable energy investment platform backed by CPP Investments, has entered the battery storage market in Great Britain, working with Eelpower, the UK specialist battery storage company. The new joint venture will acquire, build and operate utility- scale storage projects and is targetting to build up to 1 GW of storage, with a current pipeline of 240 MW to be built over the next 24 months. The RPC-Eelpower joint venture batteries will
participate in wholesale electricity markets and provide ancillary services to National Grid. Battery storage projects are unsubsidised, underscoring the JV partners’ approach to investing in projects without government subsidy as a long-term project owner. It is the first investment by RPC in the UK and follows their recent acquisition of a 528 MW onshore wind portfolio in Sweden. The agreement with RPC is Eelpower’s third joint venture in the GB storage market within two
years. In January 2021, it entered a JV with SUSI Partners and in September 2021 it announced a JV with Next Energy Solar Fund, which was expanded in September 2022 and recently acquired the development rights for a 250 MW storage portfolio in the east of England.
Great Britain represents the largest utility scale battery storage market in Europe, with 1.7 GW installed by the end of 2021. Forecasts predict growth to 10 GW by 2030.
Arenko’s optimal performance
Arenko has signed a second contract with Vattenfall to optimise a new co- located 20 MW/45.5 MWh battery asset in Northumberland, north east England. The award of this contract follows on from a previous contract to optimise Vattenfall’s 22 MW/16 MWh battery co-located at the 228 MW Pen y Cymoedd wind farm in South Wales. The asset will utilise Arenko’s cloud- based software, Nimbus, which forecasts
market and asset conditions, performing millions of simulations per day to optimise trading decisions and asset performance across markets, and then to securely and autonomously dispatch stored energy from the asset.
Arenko says it is the “top performing battery optimiser in UK”, delivering an additional £1 million of revenue per annum vs competitors for every 50 MW of battery capacity in the
period January to October 2022 (annualised battery return of £168k per operational MW per year).
Batteries optimised by Nimbus captured 8% higher revenue than the closest competitor optimiser, and generated a 14% higher battery return than the industry average, the company says, based on an analysis of the performance of every operational battery in the UK, using data from Elexon, National Grid, and EPEX.
www.modernpowersystems.com | January/February 2023 | 21
a 40 MW battery storage system coupled with PV in Georgia, USA.
RWE has installed a solar plant with integrated battery storage at the site of its Inden opencast lignite mine, with two similar plants now under construction at its Garzweiler mine. In its tender bid for the Hollandse Kust West offshore wind farm, RWE included a plan for a large integrated battery.
In other projects, RWE is employing RedOx flow systems as well as used EV batteries. It is for example co-operating with VDL Bus
& Coach on a project in the Netherlands called Anubis, in which 43 lithium-ion batteries are to be given a “second life” after intensive use in VDL-made electric buses. The batteries are be employed in an energy storage facility to be located at the Moerdijk power plant site, which is expected to become operational in 2023. RWE’s first battery installation of this kind went into operation in 2021. It consists of used lithium- ion batteries from Audi employed in a battery energy storage facility at the Herdecke pumped storage plant, North Rhine-Westphalia.
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