Eneco, a Dutch energy supplier with its Belgian headquarter in Mechelen, will invest 90 million euros into a 50-megawatt battery power park in the Walloon town of Ville-sur-Haine. The battery park, which will be connected to the high-voltage grid as a backup, should be operational by the end of next year.

The park, in the industrial zone in Ville-sur-Haine (Hainaut), involves 53 Megabucks battery units from Tesla, which is also responsible for building and maintaining the site. The site will have 50 megawatts of energy capacity and 200-megawatt hours of storage capacity.

By comparison, that is roughly equivalent to charging 3 000 electric cars or the annual consumption of 57 families. It can supply power to the grid for four hours and has a lifespan of about twenty years. Last year, the building permit was first refused after the municipal council of the Roeulx community blocked the demand.

Battery power backups like this can sometimes help balance the power grid with less solar or wind power. “They are fully charged at times when sun and wind are abundant, for example, in the afternoon when the sun is shining brightly,” Eneco explains. “A few hours later, in the evening, the power is then released back onto the grid from power grid operator Elia.”

The Netherlands is not attractive enough

Eneco promises additional investments in battery farms. The company does not elaborate on concrete plans. According to Eneco’s energy transition director Ron Wit, the company is building the battery plant in Belgium because the investment cannot be recovered in the Netherlands. It already operates a similar 48 MW battery park in Germany.

“In the Netherlands, the tariff you have to pay as a battery operator for using the grid is much higher than in Belgium and Germany,” Wit says in an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw. He says network tariffs in the Netherlands would have to be cut by 80 to 90% in a transition period of at least ten years to become competitive with Belgium and Germany.

Eneco, taken over in 2019 by a Japanese consortium, reportedly plans battery parks in Belgium for the next few years. “It won’t stop with this project,” says Tine Deheegher, manager of Renewable Energy Solutions at Eneco. “Eneco wants to build more storage capacity in Belgium and the other countries where we operate. This is just the beginning. Several hundred more MW will follow in the coming years.”

Eneco is already active in the renewable energy sector in Belgium with nearly 400 000 solar panels, 128 onshore wind turbines, and stakes in two offshore wind farms (Norther and SeaMade). According to the company, this makes it the country’s biggest green and the greenest major energy player.

Up to 4 500 MW of projects in Belgium

Last week, when a record amount of electricity was generated by wind and sun on Whit Monday, and there was even a surplus of electricity, which meant that large consumers were paid to consume electricity, Belgium’s Minster of Energy Tinne Van der Straeten pointed out the need to built battery parks so that they can provide the necessary flexibility.

In March, the minister opened Belgium’s provisionally largest energy storage system in Ruien, East Flanders, with a capacity of 25 megawatts and a storage capacity of 100-megawatt hours. Approximately 150 megawatts of mega batteries are currently operational in Belgium, but massive new battery parks are also under development. For instance, there are currently between 1 500 to 4 500 megawatts of projects in the study phase, according to the business paper De Tijd.

Belgium is ambitious to become a European leader, creating a favorable investment climate. To get projects funded, investors must rely on the so-called CRM subsidy mechanism, which means there is an obligation to repay the support received in case of high prices.

Battery farms are exempt from transmission tariffs for ten years and do not have to pay excise duties for the part they feed back into the grid.