The Ministry of Energy of Romania has reopened a competitive solicitation for battery storage for the grid integration of renewable energy, seeking “at least” 240MW and 480MWh of resources.
The results of Poland’s recent capacity market auction have been revealed, with a clearing price significantly lower than the previous years and IPP Greenvolt saying it won the lion’s share of around 1.7GW of BESS awarded contracts.
Poland looks set to lead battery storage deployments in Eastern Europe, with 9GW of battery storage projects offered grid connections and 16GW registered for the ongoing capacity market auction.
Bids have been received by Latvia’s grid operator AST for an 80MW/160MWh BESS project while developers Corsica Sole and Everon will build a 200MW system in Estonia, as the Baltic region prepares to decouple from Russia’s electricity system in 2025.
Lithium-ion battery manufacturer Hithium will provide 55MWh of battery products for a solar-plus-storage project being built by EPC firm SolarPro in Bulgaria.
The intentions of battery storage developers and operators from the UK in Poland and CEE are ‘not very concrete’ with most just ‘getting a feel’ for what’s out there, sources said.
Energy storage system (ESS) executives from Northvolt and Fluence discussed the battery and battery storage manufacturing ecosystem in Europe in separate interviews whilst at the Energy Storage Summit Central Eastern Europe (CEE) recently.
The Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) energy storage market is in its infancy but has the potential to leapfrog more developed markets with Poland in a leading position, said executives from Fluence.
The energy storage market in Poland is “not an undersupplied one”, has higher financing costs and there is a two-year window in which you need to get in to capitalise on the opportunities, said renewable energy developer and IPP Aquila Clean Energy.
