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French energy and petroleum company TotalEnergies has announced the development of a battery project in Belgium, which will help manage grid congestion problems.
The project, announced on the occasion of Belgian Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten’s visit to TotalEnergies’ Antwerp refinery battery storage project, will be developed on the site of TotalEnergies’ depot in Feluy.
It will have a power rating of 25MW and a capacity of 75MWh, thanks to the forty Intensium Max High Energy lithium-ion containers supplied by battery developer Saft.
Start-up is expected at the end of 2025.
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The Antwerp and Feluy projects, which represent a global investment of nearly €70 million ($75.4 million), will bring TotalEnergies’ storage capacity in Belgium to 50MW / 150MWh.
The battery storage sites will play a key role in the resilience of the electricity system, states the company in a release, providing flexibility to help resolve grid congestion problems. They also encourage the growth of renewable energies in the country, which will require solutions like these to compensate for intermittency.
“We are pleased to announce this new storage project in Feluy, just a year after we began our Antwerp project, which should be operational by the end of the year. These projects are fully in line with our integrated development strategy for electricity, not just in Belgium, but globally,” said Olivier Jouny, senior vice president for integrated power at TotalEnergies.
“These technical systems also confirm the European leadership of our affiliate specialised in battery production, Saft and its industrial-scale stationary storage know-how.”
A French energy company, TotalEnergies is a major player along the Belgian electricity value chain. As an electricity supplier, the company has a portfolio of 900,000 customers.
In electric mobility, TotalEnergies already has more than 10,000 charging points in operation (35% on roads, 20% at private homes and 45% in offices) throughout the country. TotalEnergies also operates recharging points in major cities such as Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent.
As an electricity producer, TotalEnergies relies in particular on the Marchienne-au-Pont CCGT power plant (430 MW), the Plate-Taille hydroelectric storage (140 MW), and an offshore wind farm located in the Belgian North Sea (300 MW). TotalEnergies is also developing solar and onshore wind projects, with a portfolio of 300MW.
