Leag begins construction of further large battery
25.10.2024
A hydrogen and electricity storage center has been under construction at the Boxberg power plant site in Upper Lusatia since the beginning of the year. The construction of a storage facility has now begun.
Lausitzer Energie AG (Leag) has begun building a large-scale battery at the Boxberg site, the company announced. In future, it will provide "highly flexible balancing energy to stabilize the power grid and can also be used for short-term energy trading". The Oberlausitz large-scale battery has a grid connection capacity of 100 MW and a storage capacity of 137,000 kWh. It is due to be completed next year.
This large-scale battery will therefore be around twice as powerful as its existing sister plant in Lausitz at the Schwarze Pumpe site (54,000 kWh). Daniel Kosel, Head of Project Development at Leag, explains that Leag's power plant sites offer ideal conditions for such battery parks with large industrial areas, existing power plant control systems and power connections at the extra-high voltage level. "For us, the Big Battery Oberlausitz is the next step on the way to developing a Lusatian battery park on a gigawatt scale from the existing potential."
400 compact containers are being built
According to Leag, the Oberlausitz battery storage system is characterized by its modular design. Two separately controllable storage strings, each with 50 MW, can back each other up, but can also be used in parallel for different applications. In contrast to the large-scale Lausitz battery in Schwarze Pumpe with a total of 13 battery containers measuring twelve meters in length, over 400 smaller, compact containers with pre-installed battery modules will be erected in Boxberg. Lithium iron phosphate batteries will be used. Their main advantage is their cycle stability.
Leag plans to build the largest hydrogen and electricity storage center in eastern Germany over the next few years. The company is using the site of the current Boxberg lignite-fired power plant for this purpose. Under the name "H2UB" (Hydrogen Unit and Battery), a plant for the production and conversion of hydrogen as well as a battery storage facility is to be built on the site of the decommissioned plants I and II (we reported).
According to the company, the project will also serve as a pilot project for similar facilities at other power plant sites in Lusatia. The project is part of the Gigawatt Factory program, which aims to install up to 7,000 MW of capacity for electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and up to 14,000 MW by 2040. The current generation of electricity from lignite is to end by 2038 at the latest, for which the coal-fired power plant sites will have to be transformed.
Author: Heidi Roider
Energie & Management GmbH
