HELLENiQ Completes 100 MW Battery Complex in Thessaloniki

HELLENiQ Renewables has completed construction of a 100 MW / 200 MWh battery energy storage system near Thessaloniki, placing it among the largest such facilities in Greece. The €50 million project was financed with support from the Greece 2.0 programme under the NextGenerationEU fund, and occupies ten hectares fitted with 56 containers of liquid-cooled lithium iron phosphate cells.

The system delivers two hours of output at full capacity, a window designed to absorb surplus electricity from solar and wind farms rather than curtail it. Just a month before the project came online, Greece’s high-voltage grid held roughly 600 MW of operational or under-construction BESS capacity, so the new installation adds a meaningful share to the national total. Grid integration required HELLENiQ to construct a dedicated 33/150 kV substation and lay a five-kilometre underground cable.

The facility is planned to complete at least one full charge-discharge cycle each day to smooth peak demand. Sotiris Kapellos, chief executive of the HELLENiQ Renewables division, said storage has become the only practical means of preventing routine curtailment of clean energy during periods of oversupply. Daytime solar generation has already been driving sharp price drops in Greece’s day-ahead market.

HELLENiQ currently operates 727 MW of generation capacity and is building a broader portfolio exceeding 6 GW, which includes 1 GW of batteries. A follow-on 50 MW / 200 MWh project is in preparation in Florina, a traditionally coal-dependent area of Western Macedonia. The company aims to reach 1.5 GW of renewables by 2028 and exceed 2 GW by 2030.

Source: Balkan Green Energy News