Wartsila Enters Belgium Market With 25 MW Energy Storage System to Balance Grid and Support Reliability

The technology group Wärtsilä will supply a 25-megawatt (MW) / 100-megawatt hour (MWh) energy storage system under an extended equipment delivery and a long-term service agreement in Belgium. This project marks Wärtsilä’s entrance into the Belgian energy storage market and will be one of the largest systems in the country. The order was booked to Wärtsilä order intake in October 2021.

The new system will help regulate fluctuations in the grid, such as changes in wind energy production, and improve revenues by maintaining energy frequency and reliability. Energy storage projects like this will play an increasingly important role in balancing Belgium’s grid as the country prepares to phase out nuclear power by 2025 and continues offshore wind energy deployments.

“This project is notable for Wärtsilä as our first project in Belgium to-date, and another important milestone on adding state-of-the-art flexibility to the power system,” said Pekka Tolonen, Energy Business Director, Europe, Wärtsilä. “We see a major opportunity and paramount need to increase deployment of energy storage in Europe, allowing to harness the full benefit of intermittent renewable energy across the continent.”

The facility will include Wärtsilä’s GridSolv Quantum, a fully integrated, modular, and compact energy storage system, as well as the GEMS Digital Energy Platform, Wärtsilä’s sophisticated energy management system. GEMS will ensure optimal performance for specified use cases that will maintain the reliability of electricity supply, including reserve power, frequency control response, capacity dispatch, and voltage support.

Wärtsilä will optimize the energy storage system with its Service+ GAP solution, which provides maintenance with performance guarantees. The energy storage system is expected to become operational in Q4 2022.