Finnish Firm Wärtsilä Commissions Netherland’s Largest Energy Storage System

The technology group headquartered in Finland, Wärtsilä has said that it has commissioned of its first energy storage project in the Netherlands, which is the country’s largest system to date. Rob Jetten, Minister for Climate and Energy, and Ruud Nijs, CEO of GIGA Storage BV, joined Wärtsilä in the ribbon cutting ceremony of the project. The energy storage facility is called the GIGA Buffalo battery having a capacity of 24MW/48MWh of energy storage system consisting of Wärtsilä’s Gridsolv Quantum and GEMS Digital Energy Platform.

The official statement of Wärtsilä held that GIGA Buffalo battery is co-located with wind and solar assets at the Wageningen University & Research test centre in Lelystad. It provides the Netherlands’ energy provider Eneco with the energy capacity necessary to alleviate intermittency from renewables and regulate energy frequency while adding reliability to the grid.

Wärtsilä mentioned that the energy storage also improves revenues by optimising the value of the renewable assets and providing capacity that can be dispatched during peak demand.

Ruud Nijs, CEO, GIGA Storage BV, said, “We’re pleased to see this landmark project complete construction and come online. Battery storage is critical for the stabilisation of the country’s electric grid and imperative for reaching our clean energy goals.”

“We celebrate another successful energy storage deployment globally, and our first here in the Netherlands. Congratulations to the Netherlands on this victory in their transition toward a net-zero future,” said Jens Norrgård, Director, Europe, Wärtsilä Energy.

The system includes GridSolv Quantum of Wärtsilä which is an integrated, modular and compact storage system. Wärtsilä’s smart energy management system, GEMS Digital Energy Platform, uses machine learning and historic and real-time data analytics to optimise the complete system. It is optimised with Wärtsilä’s Service+ GAP solution, which provides system maintenance with performance guarantees.

The Dutch Ambitions

The Dutch government has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 49 percent by 2030 and a 95 percent reduction by 2050. Recent reports indicate that the Netherlands will need between 29 and 54-gigawatts (GW) of energy storage capacity by 2050 to support the increase in renewable energy generation and ensure reliability as the country meets its decarbonisation goals.