French energy giant TotalEnergies has launched a battery farm project to store energy at its Antwerp refinery in Belgium.
The battery farm project will have a power of 25 MW and a capacity of 75 MWh, equivalent to the daily consumption of nearly 10,000 homes, TotalEnergies has highlighted. After commissioning four battery parks in France offering a total energy storage capacity of 130 MWh, this project will be TotalEnergies’ largest battery installation in Europe.
According to TotalEnergies, the batteries – 40 Intensium Max High Energy lithium ion containers – will be supplied by Saft, the French company’s battery subsidiary. TotalEnergies said the facility will help meet the needs of the European and Belgian high-voltage transmission network and that the project will be operational by the end of 2024.
TotalEnergies believes that this battery farm project will smooth power fluctuations on the national grid on a daily basis, especially during winter peak periods, as well as ensure grid security through active participation in national grid backup services . It should also allow more renewable electricity to be integrated into the grid, TotalEnergies has pointed out.
The company added that this storage project would compensate for any intermittency introduced by renewable energies and thus allow their development. Batteries are an effective response to the growing need to balance the grid, TotalEnergies said, adding that they can be deployed quickly, have a limited footprint and are highly reactive. As a result, they can help meet the new challenges facing power grids today, the company noted.
This project, located on the site of the Antwerp refinery, will benefit from the available land and grid connection at the site, TotalEnergies said. This is a new step in TotalEnergies’ development of battery energy storage systems (BESS), which strengthens the company’s presence throughout the electricity value chain in Belgium (production, storage, supply), he added.
“This first storage project in Belgium, our largest in Europe, will help ensure the stability of the Belgian and European grids to enable further development of renewable energies. It fits perfectly with TotalEnergies’ multi-energy strategy. With supported by Saft’s expertise in battery energy storage systems, TotalEnergies intends to deploy storage solutions, especially in countries where we are actively developing renewable energies. With its energy storage solutions , TotalEnergies supports the growth of renewable energy production in the European energy mix,” said Olivier Jouny, SVP of Integrated Energy at TotalEnergies.
The Antwerp refinery is located in the port area of the city, in the Antwerp-Rotterdam-Amsterdam hub serving the oil markets of Europe. The site includes Europe’s third-largest refinery, processing 338,000 barrels of oil per day, a petrochemical plant and a facility that produces polymers, with a capacity of 1.1 million tonnes of ethylene per year, according to TotalEnergies.
In 2013, TotalEnergies invested more than €1 billion to upgrade the Antwerp complex, and work on the upgrades was completed in 2017.
As an electricity supplier in Belgium, TotalEnergies has a portfolio of 450,000 BtC sites and around 100,000 BtB sites. To supply them with energy, TotalEnergies relies mainly on the 430 MW Marchienne-au-Pont CCGT plant, the 140 MW Plate-Taille hydroelectric dam and a 300 MW wind farm located in the Belgian waters of the North Sea. TotalEnergies is also developing onshore solar and wind projects, with a portfolio of 300 MW.
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