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.
Audrius Baranauskas, head of innovation at Lithuanian TSO Litgrid, talked Energy-Storage.news through its 200MW storage-as-transmission BESS units, deployed by system integrator Fluence.
Northvolt intends to use its vertical European supply chain to differentiate itself in a ‘fiercely competitive’ energy storage market, executives said.
Executives from Sweden-based developer OX2 discussed its diversification from wind and solar into storage with Energy-Storage.news, with Poland a big part of that move.
