Germany opens Europe’s biggest clean energy battery plant

Germany opened the largest commercial battery plant in Europe on Tuesday and the new installation will help stabilise the region's renewable energy supply.

Utility Wemag AG made the announcement this week and the new facility will bring 5MW of capacity online.

The plant will store enough energy to power around 2,500 homes and will integrate a growing share of solar and wind energy into the network.

The €6 million (£4.7 million) plant is located in the northern city of Schwerin and is designed to regulate short-term fluctuations that can to power outages.

Germany is aiming to increase its share of renewable energy from around 25 per cent currently to 40-45 per cent by 2025 and 55-60 per cent by 2035.

Sigmar Gabriel, German Economy Minister, said: "This is an interesting alternative to conventional power plants and the regional utilities have come up with an interesting project here.”

A lack of storage capacity has been one of the biggest obstacles to Germany expanding its share renewable energy further.

Germany's "Energiewende" programme represents a switch away from nuclear and fossil fuels to renewable energy and is the centrepiece of Chancellor Angela Merkel's energy and environment policy.

Green energy incentives were introduced by a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens in 2002 and the country's renewable energy sector has been thriving since then.

The plant is powered by 25,600 lithium-manganoxid cells that have been supplied by Samsung SDI Co.

The development of utility-scale energy storage systems has been impeded by the relatively high cost of battery technologies but with costs falling as manufacturers scale up production and improve battery technologies, there is some expectation that energy storage systems could lead to 100 per cent clean energy grids.