NGEN and Harmony Energy have made strides in deploying large-scale BESS projects in Germany, launching construction and securing pipeline financing respectively.
NGEN
Owner-operator NGEN has broken ground on a 50MW/100MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, being deployed in partnership with power firm Uniper.
Commissioning is scheduled for Q4 2026. It is on the former site of a Uniper thermal power plant, and the BESS is part of a redevelopment of the entire site as a renewable energy hub, the Energy Transformation Hub Nordwest (ETHNw).
NGEN is based in Slovenia but has deployed or is deploying BESS in multiple European countries, including its home market, Austria, Croatia, Poland, Portugal and now Germany. We spoke to founder and CEO Roman Bernard just before it expanded outside its initial core markets in 2023. It has typically used Tesla for its projects.
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Germany is a hotbed of BESS activity at the moment driven by huge merchant trading opportunities but uncertainty about the future of charge-discharge grid-fees is holding back long-term investment.
Harmony Energy
In related news, UK-based developer and operator Harmony Energy has secured a three-year development financing facility from NEDF, a partnership managed by investment services firm Triple Point. The facility (amount undisclosed) will go towards Harmony Energy’s 3GW pipeline of BESS projects in Germany.
Harmony Energy is most well-known for developing for, and operating, the Harmony Energy Income Trust (HEIT) a listed fund that invested in UK BESS projects. That was ultimately sold and de-listed to asset manager Foresight Group, which Harmony CEO Peter Kavanagh discussed with us last year.
As another UK BESS fund manager Gore Street Capital is doing, Harmony has since pivoted to the European market, initially with Poland but also more recently France, where it has brought three 100MW/200MWh projects to construction. Harmony Energy also typically uses Tesla.
