Centrica Business Solutions has paired with Dutch energy solutions provider Alfen to deliver a 24MW/54MWh battery energy storage system for its project in Ostend, Belgium.
This will be Centrica’s first battery storage project outside of the UK.
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The facility will be located on land owned by Ostend Basic Chemicals. Expected to be completed in 2024, it will store enough energy to power 48,000 homes for two hours.
The storage system will participate in Belgium’s capacity market as the country seeks a long-term green power supply and plans to close five of its seven nuclear reactors by 2025.
With a flexible energy storage system, renewable energy can be stored at times of abundance and released when there is high demand for it.
Work on the project will start later in 2023. Alfen will act as the turnkey supplier, managing the design, supply, civil works, installation, tests and long-term maintenance of the storage project.
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By GlobalDataCentrica Energy Trading will use a multimarket optimisation strategy to enable energy storage and sale to the grid once the facility is operational.
Centrica Energy Assets director Bill Rees stated: “We set an ambitious target to deliver 900MW of flexible energy assets by 2026, and to make good on this promise we’re becoming more active in developing and acquiring flexible assets at home and abroad. As the share of renewables in our energy mix grows, flexibility will be even more critical to ensure it is harnessed effectively while keeping the lights on securely and affordably.
“Belgium is becoming strategically important for us, and we’re excited to work with companies like Alfen to develop storage assets to help the country navigate the energy transition in a clean and sustainable way. We hope Ostend is the first step in many strategic renewable energy assets.”
