RWE Commissions 235MWh of Battery Energy Storage Systems in Germany
German utility company RWE has successfully commissioned 235MWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS) located in Hamm and Neurath, North Rhine-Westphalia. This new system boasts a capacity of 230MW and is composed of 690 lithium-ion battery blocks. The total investment required for the project’s development is approximately €140 million (around US$146 million).
These battery energy storage systems are designed to provide balancing energy, contributing to the stabilization of the electricity grid. Additionally, the facility will be virtually connected with RWE’s power stations across Germany, which enables the management of whether the storage units operate independently or in collaboration with other power stations to deliver balancing energy.
With this commissioning, RWE’s global battery portfolio has expanded to approximately 1.2GW. This portfolio includes projects in the United States, where RWE is developing a 200MW standalone BESS in Colorado using Tesla 2XL Megapacks. Furthermore, RWE has recently initiated three additional BESS projects in Texas, totaling 900MWh.
This development marks the latest large-scale BESS deployment in Germany. Speaking to Energy-Storage.news, Roberto Jimenez, executive director of battery storage developer-investor BW ESS, highlighted that Germany is currently the “hottest market in Europe today from a development perspective.” The German government introduced its first Electricity Storage Strategy in late 2023. Research conducted by BESS system integrator Fluence, in collaboration with consultancy Frontier Economics, indicated that with a favorable policy framework, Germany’s cumulative installations could potentially reach 15GW/57GWh by 2030 and 60GW/271GWh by 2050.
The German market is also undergoing various transformations. In a LinkedIn post, Lars Stephen, Fluence’s senior manager of policy and market development, identified several key trends for 2025: the emergence of GWh-scale projects, the introduction of 4-hour systems, an unsaturated market, and an increasing preference among Distribution System Operators (DSOs) for BESS. In recent years, several clean energy developer-operators, such as Gore Street Capital, Aquila Clean Energy, and Nofar Energy, have entered the market, along with BESS specialists like Eco Stor and Terralayr.
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