The Dutch municipality of Noordoostpolder has submitted a draft zoning plan for one of the first gigawatt-hour scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in the Netherlands.
The move by the Municipality Board demonstrates the municipality’s support for the 250MW/1,000MWh BESS project, development and engineering consultancy Ventolines told Energy-Storage.news.
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Ventolines is overseeing the technical aspects of development related to the project while Begro Energy Projects is the project’s primary developer.
The zoning plan was made available on 20 December 2023, and is available for inspection by local residents until 31 January 2024. Building the project, called Westermeerdijk Energy Storage, would require an amendment to the existing zoning plan. Because of its scale there were no applicable regulations or policies to proceed with it, the municipality said.
In July 2023, the Provincial Council of Flevoland province, where Noordoostpolder is, agreed to an ‘Experimental Framework for Large-scale Energy Storage Projects Flevoland’ for three projects in the province include Begro’s.
It is being planned for a 4 hectare site adjoining a high-voltage substation run by Netherlands’ transmission system operator (TSO) TenneT. A portion of the BESS will be directly connected to TenneT’s network to be able to provide flexibility and balancing services to the TSO.
Two other portions of the project will be connected to the substation as well as the 430MW Noordoostpolder wind farm, helping to balance the intermittency in the plant’s generation.
Begro and Ventolines are expected to be able to proceed with permit applications in 2024, with construction in 2025 for commercial operations in 2026.
Commenting on the project, Noordoostpolder councillor Toon van Steen: “Spatially, this fits in nicely with the generation location on the Westtermeerdijk. In this way we cluster generation and storage and use the existing energy infrastructure and sustainably generated energy efficiently.”
Rens Savenije, business lead system integrator for Ventolines added: “This project is a perfect example of a combination of wind farms, solar parks, and batteries near the same high-voltage station. This is system integration at its best, positioning us as pioneers in the market.”
TenneT recently said the Netherlands needs 9GW of new BESS by 2030 but the development of the market is currently lagging behind Belgium and Germany for deployments, both from a regulatory perspective as highlighted by Noordoostpolder municipality but also a highly congested grid.
The country’s largest BESS at 30MW/68MWh came online last month. Other developers looking to progress projects of similar scale to Westtermeerdijk include Lion Storage, which discussed the Dutch market in detail in an interview with Energy-Storage.news last year.
Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 9th annual Energy Storage Summit EU in London, 20-21 February 2024. This year it is moving to a larger venue, bringing together Europe’s leading investors, policymakers, developers, utilities, energy buyers and service providers all in one place. Visit the official site for more info.
