A trio of large-scale 4-hour BESS projects in Germany have progressed towards construction, from Enertrag and Enlight, Vattenfall and Fluence, and Giga Storage.
The announcements come ahead of a 1 January, 2027 deadline for battery energy storage system (BESS) project owners to prove that final investment decision (FID) has been reached in order to qualify for a 20-year exemption from charge-discharge grid fees. The projects then need to come online by 1 August, 2029, though this should be relatively straightforward if FID is done in time.Â
Grid fees and flexible connection agreements (FCAs) were a big talking point at the Energy Storage Summit Germany 2026 in Berlin last month, where we caught up with leading player Eco Stor about the relationship between the two. Â
Enlight and Enertrag start building Germany project
IPP Enlight Renewable Energy and German power firm Enertrag have launched construction on their 200MW/840MWh Bertikow BESS. The two companies jointly own the project, which is expected to go into operation in H1 2028.
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A groundbreaking ceremony at the project in Brandenburg was held on 13 October. The project is in the grid territory of 50Hertz, one of Germany’s four main transmission system operators (TSOs).It is located near the Bertikow substation in the Uckerfelde municipality.
The project has a seven-year offtake agreement with EDF Trading for part of its capacity, and will also be optimised by Entrix.
Enertrag and 50Hertz completed upgrades to the Bertikow substation last year, allowing it to become a hub for more than 500MW of wind and solar in the region as well as the BESS.Â
Vattenfall enlists Fluence for 1GWh+ BESS project
Sweden-based power firm Vattenfall has signed an agreement with system integrator Fluence for the latter to provide a turnkey solution for its 254MW/1,000MWh (or higher) BESS Brunsbüttel project.
The project will be built at the site of a nuclear power plant that is being decommissioned, and will come online by the end of 2028.
Fluence will provide its Gridstack Pro 5000 units, power conversion systems (PCS) and its energy management system (EMS) alongside commissioning and long-term support services.
It is Fluence’s eighth project with Vattenfall and 20th in Germany, Julian Jansen, VP & managing director Germany for the company said.
Construction is expected to start on the project in 2027 for commercial operations in 2028.
Vattenfall secured planning approval for the project last year, but it has substantially increased its planned capacity since the 700MWh it stated at the time.Â
Vattenfall is also a provider of offtake in other markets rather than directly owning projects. This week (13 October) it announced a toll with tank storage firm Royal Vopak for 100MW/400MWh of the latter’s 150MW/600MWh project in Meeden, Groningen, the Netherlands.
Giga Storage and Amprion agree grid connection for 1.4GWh project
BESS owner-operator Giga Storage and TSO Amprion have signed an agreement to connect Giga’s Albatross BESS project to Amprion’s 380kV transmission grid.
Giga announced the project had reached ready-to-build (RTB) stage earlier this month, its first project in Germany. It will have a capacity of 350MW/1,400MWh and will be built in Samtgemeinde Neuenkirchen in Lower Saxony, next to Amprion’s Merzen substation.
Although not specified in its announcement, the agreement is likely to be a flexible connection agreement (FCA). FCAs in Germany limit a project’s operational parameters, and virtually every large-scale project has to enter into one to be connected.Â
Giga Storage is known for similarly large-scale projects in the Netherlands and Belgium.Â
