Dutch company Alfen has developed and delivered a “mega” energy storage system featuring BMW’s lithium-ion car batteries to electric utility Nuon’s 122MW onshore Prinses Alexia wind farm at Zeewolde, in the Netherlands.
A 3MW battery storage system will gradually be expanded to 12MW, making it the “largest storage project in the Netherlands”, Alfen said.
Andreas Plenk, who is responsible for global sales of energy storage systems at Alfen, said: “Our system is compatible with multiple batteries. The excellent collaboration with both Nuon and BMW has made it possible to realise this innovative system in a short period of time. In addition, the installation has a modular set-up which makes it easy to expand in the future.”
The project is Alfen’s second that connects storage units to a wind farm, following its 1MW battery storage installation at Giessenwind in Giessenburg.
Boudewijn Tjeertes, project manager at Nuon, a Vattenfall subsidiary said: “This will enable us to make flexible use of renewable energy without wasting energy. And we are looking further: for example, we are planning to install a battery in residential areas with many houses with rooftop solar. In this way residents can use their solar energy that is generated during the day to charge their car at night. Today this is still happening with energy from fossil fuels.”
