Battery storage projects have won nearly 40% of the capacity in Belgium’s latest capacity market (CM) auction results, while Germany’s first has all gone to gas, paying nearly eight times more than Belgium in the process.

Having just begun construction on a 2.8GWh BESS in Belgium, Giga Storage has progressed its 1.4GWh project in Germany to the ready-to-build stage.

Welcome to the first edition of In Case You Missed It (ICYMI), a recap of last week’s biggest news stories in energy storage.

RWE has taken a final investment decision (FID) on 400MW/1.1GWh BESS in the Netherlands with construction to start in due course, while Giga Storage has started building its 2.8GWh Green Turtle project in Belgium.

EDF Power Solutions has put a 150MW/600MWh BESS in Belgium into commercial operation while Engie has started building a 74MW/296MWh project. 

Aukera has closed a €460 million (US$534.23 million) structured credit facility to advance its project pipeline in five European markets.

There’s been a flurry of project completions across Europe this past week, with projects completed in Germany, Estonia, Belgium, Denmark and Bulgaria by RheinEnergie/SMA, BSP, BStor, European Energy and Sunotec respectively, totalling nearly 700MWh of capacity.

Owner-operator Giga Storage has secured a €450 million (US$512 million) financing package for its 700MW/2,800MWh Green Turtle BESS project in Belgium.

Three massive BESS projects have been launched in Europe: BW ESS has broken ground on a 1GW/5.7GWh system in Germany, while Greenvolt and Giga Storage have enlisted suppliers (BYD and Tesla) for 2.4GWh and 2.8GWh projects in Poland and Belgium.

IPP Greenvolt has put a 99.8MW/288.6MWh BESS into commercial operation in Hungary, the largest in the country, while pipelines and projects have been progressed in Italy, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.