A flurry of BESS project deployment news in Germany from Re.venture, Green Flexibility, EWE and Terra One, with the projects designed to relieve grid congestion and one configured for a 4-hour duration.
The news comes as Germany tops consultancy Baringa’s inaugural BESS Attractiveness Index, alongside the California ISO (CAISO) and Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) markets in the US.
The country’s energy storage market is currently benefitting from attractive opportunities in its ancillary services market and wholesale energy market, Europe’s deepest, alongside a maturing project finance and tolling landscape.
Terra One secures financing for 3GWh Germany pipeline
BESS developer-operator Terra One has raised €150 million (US$177 million) in mezannine financing from global asset manager Aviva Investors.
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Terra One said the financing gives it the power to invest up to €750 million in new battery energy storage system (BESS) projects, allowing it to build around 3GWh of capacity. It follows the firm raising US$7.5 million in seed funding in April last year, following its founding in 2022.
Law firm Ashurst, which advised Aviva on its investment, meanwhile said in its own announcement that the deal enables Terra One to deploy 500MW of BESS, scheduled to be commissioned by 2028.
Founder and CEO Tony Schumacher said: “This hybrid financing structure gives us the flexibility and scalability we need to establish ourselves as a top player in the independent storage space.”
Mezannine financing typically means debt which can be converted to equity.
The firm is an operator of projects but has also sold some notable ones, including a 310MW project to Netherlands-based S4 Energy last year. Terra One then broke ground on a 15MW/30MWh build-own-operator project in June this year, which it will optimise on a merchant basis with its in-house Terra AI platform.
Re.venture launches first BESS project
Solar developer-operator Re.venture has marked its entry into the BESS market with a 60MW/240MWh project in Kränzlin, near the City of Neuruppin, in the state of Brandenburg.
Construction on the project covering 1.5 hectares will begin in 2026 for a commissioning date in 2027, following the green light from authorities.
The site is strategically located in a ‘relief area’ designated by local grid operator and utility E.dis, Re.venture said, meaning it is particularly susceptible to grid bottlenecks due to its high proportion of renewable energy generation.
“In Brandenburg, significant amounts of renewable electricity have to be curtailed every year because the grid cannot absorb the energy generated. The plant in Kränzlin will be able to make more locally generated energy available for the market and the grid,” said Jens Kompauer, founder and CEO of Re.venture GmbH.
The project involves two dedicated substations with a direct connection to e.dis’s 110 kV level, while it is being built with a modular design that will allow it to double in size to 480MWh in future if needed, making it an 8-hour system.
Green Flexibility breaks ground on 40MW/80MWh project
BESS developer-operator Green Flexibility meanwhile held a groundbreaking ceremony in Balzhausen, Bavaria, marking the start of construction on its 40MW/80MWh BESS.
The project is being deployed in partnership with local grid operator and utility LEW Verteilnetz GmbH (LVN).
As with Green Flexiblity’s other projects, it is adopting a ‘grid-neutral’ approach to deployment. This means that the project connects to the grid via a ‘feed-in socket’ and LVN can temporarily reduce the BESS’ feed-in power in certain grid situations to avoid bottlenecks in the power grid.
Barbara Plura, asset manager and technical grid planner at LEW Verteilnetz, commented: “The energy transition needs speed – this is exactly what our pilot project ‘feed-in socket’ shows. It has created additional grid connection capacity in a very short time.”
Green Flexibility CEO Christoph Ostermann touched on the topic in a broader interview with ESN Premium last year, when the company emerged from stealth mode.
EWE subsidiary deploying 20MW/40MWh system
Lastly, energy and infrastructure group EWE is deploying a 20MW/40MWh BESS in Reußenköge, Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, via its subsidiary Be.storaged.
Delivery of the BESS units is being completed this month while commissioning is targeted for before the end of the year.
“Magnus Pielke, Managing Director of be.storaged, said: “Large-scale battery storage systems buffer generation peaks, stabilise the grid, and, when operated intelligently, make the expansion of our energy infrastructure more efficient – especially at a location like this one in a windy region in the immediate vicinity of a wind farm.
The company is targeting 300MWh of deployments within the next year.
