Renewable developer and independent power producer (IPP) TagEnergy will soon start construction on the largest BESS project in France, a 240MW/480MWh project with Tesla providing BESS and EPC services.
The project will be built in the commune of Cernay-lès-Reims, in the department of Marnes, and is around five times bigger than the largest system online in France today, TagEnergy said.
It is being financed by a consortium comprised of banks ABN AMRO, NORD/LB, and Caisse d’Epargne CEPAC. Archeological investigations have been going on at the site since April and construction will start in January 2025, with a grid connection scheduled for late 2025.
The battery energy storage system (BESS) will optimise the use of renewables on the grid, provide extra capacity during peak demand periods, and provide grid stability services. It will cover 20% of the residential electricity needs for the whole Marne department, where around 565,000 people live.
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The project’s 225kV connection to the national grid operated by transmission system operator (TSO) RTE (Réseau de Transport d’Électricité) will make it ideally positioned to capitalise on new short and medium-term revenue opportunities in the Secondary Reserve (aFRR) market.
As well as providing the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) on the project, Tesla will also provide route-to-market (RTM) services, managing its activity in the electricity market.
Christophe Léonard, managing partner for France at TagEnergy, commented: “The trajectory outlined in France’s Multi-Annual Energy Plan, currently under public consultation, calls for a 2.5-fold increase in wind capacity and a 4-fold increase in solar capacity by 2035. This transformation requires significant development of flexibility solutions.”
Alongside renewables, TagEnergy is active in energy storage in the UK, where it recently commissioned a 100MW/200MWh BESS, which it claimed is the largest transmission-connected BESS in the country.
Other large-scale BESS projects in France have also progressed recently. Late last month, Switzerland-based IPP Alpiq acquired a BESS project from UK-based developer Harmony Energy Oise, north of Paris, while Harmony Energy announced it would build a separate project near Nantes in July – both sized at 100MW/200MWh.
The largest operational BESS in France that Energy-Storage.news has reported on is a 61MW/61MWh project owned by oil and gas major TotalEnergies, deployed by its system integrator subsidiary Saft.
