Central battery unit French Southern Territories

Where is France's largest battery energy storage system located?

reported a while back on the completion of an expansion at continental France’s largest battery energy storage system (BESS) project. BESS capacity at the TotalEnergies refinery site in Dunkirk, northern France, is now 61MW/61MWh over two phases, with the most recent 36MW/36MWh addition completed shortly before the end of 2021

Is totalenergies the biggest battery storage project in France?

The energy major has 103MW of capacity market contracted energy storage online or coming online in France. Interestingly however, despite presiding over the single biggest project in the country, TotalEnergies sits second in Clean Horizon’s chart of France’s most prolific (publicly announced) battery storage project owners and developers.

Is AFRR the future of battery storage in France?

France also shares common frequency regulation markets with much of Europe and some of these, notably the newly-introduced automated Frequency Restoration Reserve (aFRR), are being seen as important revenue streams that could be stacked to further the business case for battery storage in the continent.

Where is Saft battery storage located?

Saft battery storage at the Dunkirk project. Image: Saft. A second installation phase has been completed at TotalEnergies’ battery energy storage facility in Dunkirk, northern France, bringing its output and capacity to 61MW / 61MWh.

Is France a good place to invest in battery storage assets?

This is all the more encouraging because unlike the UK, there are only two revenue streams available for battery storage assets in France today. The other is frequency control reserve (FCR), aka primary control reserve (PCR), what could be seen as the first rung of the ancillary services ladder.

Does the UK have a large-scale battery storage market?

As shown by the work of our colleagues at Solar Media Market Research, the UK has roughly 1.5GW of large-scale battery storage. Its market has grown rapidly: before a 200MW tender for grid services held by transmission system operator (TSO) National Grid in 2016, the UK had almost nothing.