Eco Stor begins 714 MWh battery storage project in Germany

This week, Eco Stor is kicking off construction preparations for another large-scale battery storage system in Germany. The planned facility will have a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) and 714 megawatt-hours (MWh), and will be built in Förderstedt, a town in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

According to the German-Norwegian company, which is headquartered in Bavaria, all regulatory approvals and ecological site requirements have been met, allowing initial groundwork to begin.

The first phase will involve infrastructure development around the eight-hectare site, located adjacent to an existing substation. Eco Stor will begin by securing roads and setting up the construction site. Earthworks will follow, including laying foundations for the batteries, installing ducts for utility lines, and preparing other core components.

The system will be divided into three blocks and will include a 110 kV substation, 96 container stations for inverters and transformers, and 192 container units housing lithium-ion batteries. Installation will be phased and modular in line with the block-based design. Eco Stor aims to connect the system to the 50Hertz transmission grid and complete commissioning in 2026. The project is being developed and built by Eco Stor’s subsidiary, Eco Power Three GmbH.

“In Förderstedt, we’re building an energy storage system that will deliver triple the capacity and power of what is currently Germany’s largest battery in Bollingstedt, Schleswig-Holstein,” said Eco Stor Managing Director Georg Gallmetzer. That earlier system, also built by Eco Stor, has been active on the power exchange for several months.

Eco Stor has not disclosed the investment cost for the Förderstedt project, but emphasised that it is entirely privately financed without any public funding. The municipality of Staßfurt, where the project is located, will benefit from increased business tax revenue, receiving 90% of the resulting proceeds.

The project is one of a select group to have secured a grid connection from transmission system operator 50Hertz.

In response to questions from pv magazine Germany, 50Hertz recently stated it has issued 93 grid connection approvals for various projects, including renewables, battery systems, gas plants, and large consumers such as data centres, totalling 35 GW. Of those, 23 approvals covering approximately 12 GW were granted to battery projects through a Network Technical Statement (NTS). “This means our grid connection capacity for project starts between 2025 and 2029 is now exhausted,” said 50Hertz.

With more than twice as many applications still pending, the operator has launched a feasibility study, though it gave little hope of securing new connection offers before 2029.

From pv magazine Germany.