A group of investors and utilities from Switzerland and Germany have inaugurated a 100MW/200MWh BESS project in Bavaria, Germany, deployed by Fluence – concurrent with separate announcements from S4 Energy and EnBW.
The 2-hour battery energy storage system (BESS) project in the town of Arzberg was inaugurated in a ceremony attended by Bavarian Prime Minister Dr. Markus Söder and State Secretary Martin Schöffel, announced this week (10 November).
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Söder commented: “During periods of lull in solar and wind energy, battery storage is needed to ensure base load capacity and to balance tensions in the grid. The new storage facility in Arzberg will store regionally generated energy and feed it into the grid.”
The project’s main investors are Switzerland-based investment firms Reichmuth Infrastructure and MW Storage while German utilities Bayernwerk and Zukunftsenergie Nordostbayern GmbH (ZENOB) are minority investors.
The BESS units were deployed by system integrator Fluence using its Cube product, with 312 units arranged in 26 arrays of 12. The project was first announced by Fluence and one of its parent companies Siemens in July 2021, when Siemens said it would handle project management and civil engineering works.
Progress then went quiet until Reichmuth Infrastructure said construction had started in November 2023, after which Fluence’s involvement in the project was confirmed. MW Storage and Fluence have also partnered on several projects in Finland.
The Wunsiedel project connects directly to a nearby 110 kV high-voltage transmission line. Bayernwerk is the largest distribution network operator (DNO) in Bavaria, while ZENOB is a consortium of utilities and other stakeholders deploying clean energy and energy system modernisation projects. The companies said the project represents an ‘interweaving’ of local and regional networks.
The energy regulator in Germany, the Federal Network Agency, estimates the country will need 23.7GW of energy storage by 2045.
The announcement coincides with two other big news items in Germany’s large-scale BESS sector.
EnBW deploying 100MW BESS in southern Germany
Utility and independent power producer (IPP) EnBW will build a 100MW/100MWh BESS project in Marbach, southern Germany, its largest to-date by far, it said.
Construction on the project, which will use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, will start in 2025 and it will be operational by the end of the year. The company has a pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project underway in Germany and its director for battery system solutions Arnim Wauschkuhn explained the more recent move into large-scale BESS.
“The timing for this project is ideal,” Wauschkuhn said. “Battery modules have become significantly cheaper. At the same time, there is increasing demand on the energy markets for short-term dispatchable capacity. Taken together, these two factors also improve the economics of large projects like this one.”
EnBW has previously said it will add storage to all its solar projects in Germany, which you can read more about on our sister site PV Tech.
S4 Energy enters German market
Just weeks after it acquired a 6GW portfolio of BESS projects in its home country of the Netherlands from developer Low Carbon, developer-operator S4 Energy has entered Germany with the acquisition of a 310MW portfolio. The seller is developer Terra One Climate Solutions.
S4 will build, own and operate the projects which have expected commercial operation dates between 2026 and 2028, some being ready-to-build and some not. S4 is owned by commodities trader Castleton Commodities International.
