Pan European independent power producer (IPP), R.Power and Axpo have signed another multi-year contract to optimise operation of a large scale battery energy storage system (BESS) in Poland.

The new agreement covers the full scope of optimisation services for a 300 MW/1200 MWh storage facility to be built in Dziegielewo, east-central Poland. It is to date the largest agreement of its kind for the optimisation of a single BESS project in Central and Eastern Europe, and one of the largest in Europe more widely.

Following the January announcement of their optimisation deal for Jedwabno BESS, northern Poland, the agreement extends a long-standing partnership between R.Power and Axpo in Poland.

This agreement will begin at the start of commercial operation and runs until the end of 2038. It is based on a profit-sharing mechanism between Axpo and R.Power, combined with a minimum revenue guarantee (floor) that will help to secure the future of Dziegielewo – one of Poland’s largest planned BESS installations and a key project in R.Power’s 1.7 GW/6.3 GWh?Polish energy storage pipeline.

The scale and capacity of the installation is expected to significantly increase the flexibility of Poland’s power system, support integration of the growing renewable energy supply, and provide ancillary services to the balancing market.

Axpo Polska Managing Director, Mateusz Marczewski, said: “Our partnership with R.Power on the Dziegielewo project is another step towards building Axpo’s leading position in the large scale energy storage segment in Poland. Our goal remains to maximise the value of our partners’ assets throughout their entire life cycle – from participation in power and ancillary services markets to a commercialisation model tailored to bankability requirements.”

Axpo Polska Head of Origination, Krzysztof Wlodyga, added: “The trust we have built with R.Power through PPA projects and our recent agreement for Jedwabno enabled us, in a short time, to define a co-operation framework for an asset as large as the Dziegielewo storage project. A key challenge was scaling solutions to 300 MW and refining them in the context of rapidly evolving operational and regulatory standards.”

R.Power and Axpo in Poland have a long-standing partnership that includes, among other things, long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) for around 300 MW of photovoltaic (PV) capacity and a contract to optimise the Jedwabno storage facility (150 MW/300 MWh). Following the signing of the Dziegielewo agreement, the total contracted storage capacity with R.Power will reach 450 MW/1500 MWh.

R.Power Chief Commercial Officer, Rafal Hajduk, said: “We are expanding our energy storage base to structurally balance our growing PV portfolio and deliver stable, clean energy in Europe. Long-term commercialisation agreements such as this are not only fundamental to delivery of our own pipeline but also lay the groundwork for growth of utility scale BESS in highly promising markets such as Poland. Our multi-year partnership with Axpo and recent experience on the Jedwabno project enabled rapid and effective alignment on the framework for Dziegielewo, which will set a new benchmark for energy storage in Central and Eastern Europe.”