Utility-scale battery developer Giga Storage has hired Sweco to design what will be one of continental Europe’s biggest battery parks in Belgium.

The so-called Green Turtle battery park will have a capacity of 700MW, resulting in a storage capacity of 2,800 megawatt hours, equivalent to the average annual energy consumption of 385,000 households.

It will be built on the site of a former zinc processing plant in the Dilsen-Stokkem municipality in the eastern province of Limburg.

It will store renewable energy for distribution during periods of weak solar and wind energy production.

The goal is to reduce Belgium’s reliance on gas power plants.

Sweco, a Stockholm-headquartered consulting engineer, will provide civil and electrical engineering design.

It said construction is set to begin in the summer of 2025 with completion expected by 2028.

Giga Storage has two much smaller battery installations operating in the Netherlands.

Breaking battery records

Its 12MW “Rhino” scheme began operating at the test centre of Wageningen University & Research in Lelystad in 2020, and its 24MW “Buffalo” facility opened at the same location in 2022, used by energy utility Eneco.

Both broke battery-size records in the Netherlands.

Green Turtle is one of five additional facilities Giga Storage is developing in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Giga Storage Belgium’s general manager Joeri Siborgs said Green Turtle was “a flagship project for us in Belgium and an important project in realising the energy transition in Europe, where access to large-scale electricity storage plays a vital role”