Corre Energy recently announced that all four salt cavern underground construction for its two energy storage projects in Ahaus, Germany, is now 75% complete. This equates to more than 60 hours of storage capacity per project, with a completion target of 84 hours per project for a total generation capacity of 640 MW.
The AHAUS facility is located in North Rhine-West**, close to the growing offshore wind production area and the important power load area in the south. It is close to Germany's future national hydrogen backbone (H2-STARTNETZ) and will complement the establishment of a green hydrogen value chain based on renewable energy in the region.
Underground construction permits are in place for the Ahaus project and Corre Energy is in the process of changing existing operating permits from natural gas to air storage. The work was carried out by multinational chemical company Solvay as part of an agreement with Corre Energy that provided for the delivery of all four salt caverns to make them ground-ready, buildable. Given the strength of the relationship, Corre Energy is also exploring more potential new locations with Solvay in Germany and Southern Europe.
As announced in January 2024, the first AHAUS project is now also supported by a strategic partnership with major Dutch energy company Eneco. Eseco will provide 50% of all development capital and construction equity for the project, with specific economic benefits to be agreed upon separately, and will become 50% owner of the completed project together with Corre Energy. In addition to the existing offtake agreement with Corre Energy for the ZW1 project in the Netherlands, Enerco, through its Lichtblick subsidiary in Germany, has agreed to be the sole offtake for all of the power output of the first project.
Keith McGrane, chief executive officer of Corre Energy, said this latest milestone, coupled with our recent strategic investment and offtake partnership with Enerco, is significant for the rest of our portfolio. We believe this is the largest multi-day storage project being developed anywhere in the world outside of China. Supported by a global partnership agreement with Siemens Energy, Corre Energy's technology solutions utilize compressed air to store energy for multiple days, with a single project typically providing 320 MW of power generation capacity (26 GW) to help balance supply and demand for renewable energy.
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