State-owned power producer PGE Group has selected LG Energy Solution to provide the BESS for a 263MW/900MWh project it will build in Poland, for a total of PLN1.555 billion (US$385 million).
PGE has picked LG Energy Solution as general contractor for the battery energy storage system (BESS) project, which will be built at the site of the firm’s pumped hydro facility in Żarnowiec, southern Poland, pictured above.
The tender for the contract was announced in June, and LG Energy Solution’s winning price of PLN1.555 billion was described by PGE as the ‘most advantageous offer’.
The BESS in Żarnowiec, and a future planned one in Gryfino, will help to increase the regulation capacity of the power system and integrate more renewables, namely onshore and offshore wind, PGE said.
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It’s worth noting that LG Energy Solution has an 86GWh lithium-ion gigafactory in Poland which it indicated last year it may pivot towards production for BESS. Such a move could have given it an advantage in securing the contract for the project, though this was not mentioned in PGE’s announcement.
As Energy-Storage.news reported at the time, PGE’s project won a capacity market (CM) contract in December 2024, for which the obligation will begin in 2029, one of 2.5GW of projects which did so.
The CM is the bedrock of the business case for large-scale BESS in Poland thanks to its bankable revenues, and BESS projects have won a total of around 4.36GW over the past three auctions (2.5GW in 2024’s, 1.7GW in 2023’s, and 165MW in 2022’s). The total capacity of those BESS projects will be higher as not all capacity is bid in, particularly for 2024’s 2.5GW of winners because of a 57% de-rating factor.
