Energy storage also is making inroads across Europe. Technology group Wärtsilä in early March announced it had brought online a 25-MW/100-MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Belgium, in a collaboration with Japan’s Nippon Koei Energy Europe and Aquila Clean Energy EMEA, the European clean energy development platform of Aquila Capital. The grid-scale BESS (Figure 1), located on the site of a former 800-MW coal-fired power plant, is among the largest connected to the Belgian high-voltage power grid, and also one of the first four-hour-long duration BESS units in the EU. Officials during a launch ceremony in March said the project “highlights the importance of battery energy storage systems for the energy transition throughout Europe.”
