The project is the first sizeable storage investment in the country, the largest operating BESS system in Bulgaria and one of the first BESS of such scale in Eastern Europe.
Commercial management and optimization of the BESS is done by the leading electricity trader in the region KER Toki Power. The system participates in capacity and balancing market, providing aFFR and mFFR services to the grid. The storage system was designed, installed and integrated into the grid by Solarpro Technology, while the main BESS components were supplied by Hithium and Kehua.
“This co-located utility scale battery marks the start of hybridization of our over 1 GW portfolio of renewable assets in operation and in construction,” Nick Antonov, spokesperson for Renalfa IPP, said.
He added: “The main goal is to fully mitigate the PV profile risk of the generators. In the wider context of the energy transition, this facility demonstrates how advancements in technology are making renewable generation far more useful, dispatchable and flexible to supply and demand”.
“The planning, installation, and integration of this system, in parallel with the generating solar plant, and into the TSO grid was a real challenge. Thanks to the expertise of the team and the good cooperation with the suppliers of the main equipment, we were able to put the project into commercial operation in a very short time,” Adelin Antonov from Solarpro said.
Renalfa IPP is a Vienna based developer and independent power producer established as a JV between Renalfa Solarpro Group GmbH and the French infrastructure fund manager RGreen Invest.
The company owns and develops PV, BESS and wind projects with joint capacity of around 2 GW in Bulgaria, Hungary, North Macedonia and Romania, of which more than 455 MW of PV, wind and BESS already operational and more than 550 MW in construction.
