Lignite miner from Germany, Lausitz Energie Bergbau AG (LEAG) has announced plans for a 14 GW renewable energy complex in the country's eastern lignite region Lausitz. It will be accompanied by up to 2-3 GWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity and 2 GW of green hydrogen production to create a zero-carbon baseload power system.
It will enable the company to demonstrate 'for the 1st time' a system for long-term buffering of renewable energy on an industrial scale.
"In the future, it should not only compensate for the supply gap in the area of the base load after the coal phase-out, but also replace natural gas as an energy source on the basis of short- and long-term storage in combination with hydrogen," stated LEAG.
These plans seem to be part of LEAG's GigawattFactory in Lausitz, announced to have 7 GW wind and solar power capacity by 2030 in post-mining areas in October 2022 which it plans to double by 2040, as per its website (see German Coal Miner Announces 7 GW RE Power By 2030).
To realize these plans, it recently entered into an initial agreement with US based long-term energy storage systems (LDES) company ESS Tech to build a 50 MW/500 MWh iron redox flow battery at the Boxberg power plant site for a total investment of €200 million.
The duo plans to start work on it in Q3/2023 and bring the project online in phases of 1 MW by 2024, 5 MW by 2025 and 50 MW by 2027.
"One of the keys to transforming the Lusatian coalfield into Germany's green powerhouse is the development of cost-effective long-term energy storage. We are proud to be able to demonstrate the iron redox flow technology on a large scale," said LEAG CEO Thorsten Kramer.
The LEAG and ESS project is backed by a multi-stakeholder initiative of corporate CEOs, policymakers, financial institutions and start-ups called the Energy Resilience Leadership Group (ERLG) that was launched at the 2023 Munich Security Conference to help improve Europe's energy resilience through the rapid introduction of new climate technologies.