Germany inaugurates 100-MW energy storage facility

A 100 MW/200 MWh battery energy storage facility has been inaugurated in the town of Arzberg, in Germany's southern state of Bavaria, project investor Bayernwerk AG said on Sunday.

The facility was developed by Switzerland-based MW Storage AG. In addition to Bayernwerk, project investors include MW Storage Fund, Swiss asset manager Reichmuth Infrastructure and German power producer Zukunftsenergie Nordostbayern GmbH (ZENOB). Reichmuth Infrastructure, which revealed its plans to build the battery system in November 2023, is the majority shareholder.

The new facility in the Wunsiedel district, one of the biggest in Germany, will store locally generated energy and feed it into the grid. The system consists of a substation with two large transformers, 24 small transformers and 24 batteries.

With an 87% efficiency, the facility is designed to store the output of ten wind turbines, each with a capacity of 3.5 MW, for six hours or a 10-MW solar park for 20 hours. When discharged, the stored electricity could supply Wunsiedel district’s about 80,000 residents for about twelve hours.

Germany is still in the early stages of building an energy storage infrastructure. The Federal Network Agency estimates that large battery storage systems with a total of at least 23.7 GW will be needed by 2045, equivalent to 237 facilities of Arzberg’s size.

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