Limburg-based Giga Storage Belgium will construct a large-scale battery farm in Ophoven (Kinrooi). With a 300 megawatt capacity, it will be the largest battery farm in Europe, capable of providing 165 000 families with electricity for four hours.

Large storage capacity with batteries is essential to absorb fluctuations in supply and demand in the electricity market. The batteries can be charged when there is a surplus of wind or solar energy. And when there is no wind, and the sun is not shining, the stored power can be fed to the grid.

No toxic raw materials

The project area in Kinrooi is close to Elia’s Van Eyck high-voltage station, at the junction of two high-voltage lines connected to Doel, Tihange, and the Netherlands. The giant battery farm will be designed with lithium-iron-phosphate batteries without conflict or toxic raw materials, such as cobalt, nickel, and manganese. The project price is estimated at 600 million euros.

Joeri Siborgs, CEO of Giga Storage: “Today, large-scale energy storage is the missing link in the energy transition. We want to be socially relevant and ready by 2025, when five of seven nuclear power plants in Belgium will be switched off. If we, as a society, choose renewable energy, then we must invest in storage.”

The world’s largest battery farms are in the United States and Australia. Europe’s largest operational battery park is located in Cottingham in Northern England, with a storage capacity of 196 MWh. Elsewhere in Belgium, Engie, in particular, has major plans with battery parks in Vilvoorde (200 MW), Kallo (100 MW), and Drogenbos (80 MW).

Giga Storage

Giga Storage is a developer, manager, and investor of energy storage in large-scale, sustainable European projects and trades in energy on the energy trading markets. Since the very beginning, in 2018, the company’s mission has been to switch off fossil-fueled power plants by creating large-scale energy storage facilities.