PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna has obtained connection conditions for the 400 MW battery storage facility in Gryfino. The installation will be built in Nowy Czarnów in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. The storage facility will be able to supply electricity to more than 100,000 households. The investment is scheduled for completion in 2029, the company said.

“The Gryfino energy storage facility will be one of the largest energy storage facilities in Europe. The planned installation will not only allow the storage of green energy during the period of increased production from wind farms but will also strengthen the level of energy security of the national power grid. This investment brings us closer to achieving the PGE Group’s strategic goal of at least 800 MW in energy storage by 2030”, says Wojciech Dąbrowski, CEO of PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna.

In addition to the energy storage facility, PGE is building two flexible and highly efficient gas-steam units of 671 MWe each in Nowy Czarnów, which will replace the conventional units of the Dolna Odra Power Plant and are due to be commissioned in April. The two units will probably cooperate in balancing energy production by PGE’s offshore wind farms.

The PGE Group has been consistently developing its energy storage programme. It currently has two battery-based energy storage facilities. In 2020, PGE commissioned Poland’s first modular energy storage facility with a capacity of approximately 2.1 MW and 4.2 MWh. And in 2021, PGE Energia Odnawialna commissioned a 500-kW energy storage facility with a usable capacity of 750 kWh on Góra Żar in the Silesian Voivodeship.

PGE is also working on a battery-based energy storage facility at the Żarnowiec Peak-and-Pump Power Plant with a capacity of no less than 200 MW and a usable capacity of over 820 MWh. The installation is planned to be commissioned in 2027. According to the Strategy, the PGE Group will build at least 0.8 GW of new energy storage facilities by 2030.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński