In order to guarantee a stable system in the coming years, the need for flexibly deployable capacity in the electricity grid is increasing sharply. Batteries will play a major role in this, according to the Dutch national electricity grid operator TenneT. In 2030, it is expected that 9 GW of battery capacity will be connected to the high-voltage grid. This battery capacity must be effectively distributed across the country. This is stated by TenneT in its latest position paper entitled ‘TenneT’s position on Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)’.

The document provides market parties and relevant authorities with insight into the application of large batteries (>70 MW) on the high-voltage grid. BESS will play an important role in maintaining stability in the electricity grid, including for voltage management, dynamic stability, regulating and reserve power and redispatch).In addition, the report ‘Monitoring Security of Supply 2022’ in January already showed that security of supply in The Netherlands will decrease from 2030.

In the basic scenario, the security of supply standard of 4 hours was exceeded by half an hour to a level of 4.5 hours. Such a thing had never happened before. “Our energy system is changing and consists of more and more renewable electricity. And less and less from conventional energy sources like gas and coal. This will make the future system much more dynamic and less controllable. Storage is essential in a sustainable system. Batteries are an important solution to keep this system in balance in the future. They can handle the dynamic nature of renewable energy very well because they can react very quickly,” says Maarten Abbenhuis, COO TenneT

An important reason for this change is that power stations will no longer be allowed to burn coal in 2030.The demand for flexible consumption of electricity is increasing, mainly due to the continued growth of energy production from solar and wind.However, the supply of flexible capacities is developing less rapidly for the time being;the growth of hydrogen production requires more time and flexible demand is not yet extensive enough.