The technology group Wärtsilä is completing the commissioning of its first energy storage project in the Netherlands, which is the country’s largest system to date. The company was joined by His Excellency Rob Jetten, Minister for Climate and Energy, and the CEO of GIGA Storage BV, Ruud Nijs, to celebrate the milestone during a ribbon cutting ceremony on Oct 6, 2022. The facility, called the GIGA Buffalo battery, is a 24-megawatt (MW) / 48-megawatt hour (MWh) energy storage system consisting of Wärtsilä’s Gridsolv Quantum and GEMS Digital Energy Platform.

The GIGA Buffalo battery is co-located with wind and solar assets at the Wageningen University & Research test centre in Lelystad. It provides Eneco, the leading energy provider in the Netherlands, with the energy capacity necessary to alleviate intermittency from renewables and regulate energy frequency while adding reliability to the grid. It also improves revenues by optimising the value of the renewable assets and providing capacity that can be dispatched during peak demand.

“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,” said Ruud Nijs, the CEO of GIGA Storage BV.

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.

“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 Wärtsilä’s GridSolv Quantum, a fully integrated, modular and compact energy 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.