Eneco and Giga Storage Partner to Produce Netherlands’ Largest Battery

Rotterdam-headquartered energy utility Eneco and battery provider Giga Storage have kicked off the realization of the largest battery in the Netherlands — Giga Buffalo, which will have a capacity of 24 MW/ 48 MWh.

The companies say that Giga Buffalo will make it possible to balance supply and demand of electricity with the help of green energy. This would open up the possibility to further integrate sustainable means of production in the electricity market and is expected to yield CO2 savings of more than 23 thousand tons per year.

Construction of Giga Buffalo will start this year, and the battery is planned to be operational after the summer of 2022. The battery is expected to store more than 30,000 MWh electricity annually, enough to supply around 9,000 households. This would make the Giga Buffalo more than six times as large as the current Giga Rhino battery.

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Eneco will lease the battery from Giga Storage on a long-term basis and use it for its energy services. In order to achieve the goal of further integration of sustainable production resources, the company will mainly use Giga Buffalo for forecasting errors in supply and demand of energy on the intraday trading market. In addition, the battery is used for support services to TenneT, which will be done completely sustainably, according to Eneco. In the coming months, preparations will be made for construction, such as finalizing the necessary contracts with suppliers and financing.

Giga Buffalo will be connected to Windnet’s smart grid at the site of Wageningen University & Research near Lelystad. This includes research into how the most amount of sustainable energy as possible can be fed into the current electricity grid.

Ruud Nijs, CEO of GIGA Storage, said, “Our ambition is to become the largest sustainable electricity storage company in Europe. The collaboration with Eneco contributes to this. In addition to realizing the largest battery in the Netherlands with GIGA Buffalo, we are now combining this for the first time with the rental of energy storage capacity to (energy) companies.”

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Lucien Wiegers, Commercial Director Eneco Energy Trade, said, “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. 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.”