Engineering consultancy Sweco has been contracted to design one of Europe’s largest battery energy storage systems with a storage capacity of 2,800MWh, in Belgium.
Dutch developer Giga Storage, the owner of the planned 700MW/2,800MWh ‘Green Turtle’ battery park, confirmed yesterday (7 October) it has employed Sweco to design the civil engineering and electrical engineering works for the project.
Construction on Green Turtle is expected to begin in 2025 and be completed in 2028, having been delayed from the original timeframe of 2024. When asked why the date had been pushed back, a spokesperson told Energy-Storage.news earlier this year that the company “…now has a better idea on the supply chain and building contracts”.
The project also appears to have been expanded in size by an extra 100MW/400MWh. When it comes online, it will be among the largest BESS projects in Europe. Giga Storage received the permit for the BESS in April 2024.
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Joeri Siborgs, general manager of Giga Storage Belgium said Sweco had been selected as its partner for the integral design because of the company’s “solid expertise in BESS”.
The battery park to be built in Dilsen-Stokkem, in the Belgian province of Limberg, and will store surplus wind and solar PV energy as it is produced to ensure the green energy is accessible on the grid during peak times.
Green Turtle is on the former site of a major zinc factory and the land was acquired from the Budé family. A high-voltage transmission line already runs past the site and a new substation will be built by transmission system operator (TSO) Elia.
Sweco has been involved in several energy infrastructure developments in recent months. In 2024, the company was employed to develop two noteworthy green hydrogen production facilities, including Helsinki’s, Finland, first. It has also been contracted to support the development of a green hydrogen plant in the Netherlands.
Erwin Malcorps, business area president of Sweco Belgium, outlined that the company will “lay the foundation for a resilient and sustainable energy system” in Belgium through the support it will provide to Green Turtle.
Giga Storage targets 5GW of energy storage by 2030
Readers of Energy-Storage.news may be aware that infrastructure investor InfraVia Capital Partners bought a majority stake in Giga Storage in May 2024. The deal sees the founder-led management team retain a ‘significant’ stake in the company and continue to lead activities.
Giga Storage has built up a near-term pipeline of 2GW of BESS projects in Belgium and the Netherlands. The company’s operational projects in the Netherlands include what was, at the time, the largest BESS in the country at 24MW/48MWh.
In an exclusive article for Energy-Storage.news Premium, Giga Storage’s chief commercial officer, Lars Rupert, said the organisation is targeting 5GW of energy storage by 2030.
“With our current portfolio we could go higher, the big difficulty is having the qualified people to do it and getting all our ducks in a row with the contracting of the projects,” Rupert added.
Rupert also suggested the company is timing its projects ‘perfectly’ in respect to BESS pricing, which came down dramatically in late 2023 and early 2024.
“We are at prices now that were projected for two to three years from now. And we think the prices will continue to go down as parties and factories get more efficient. The production cycle is increasing to prepare for such big quantities of deployments,” Rupert said.
