Energy company EnBW has launched its first battery energy storage system (BESS) at a wind farm, aiming to improve the flexibility of power feed-in to the grid and enhance overall system efficiency.
The storage system has been installed at the Gießbacher Kopf wind farm near the municipality of Häusern in Bavaria’s Landshut district. The site has been operational since September 2023 and includes two wind turbines with a combined generation capacity of 6.9 megawatts (MW), producing approximately 21.7 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity annually—enough to meet the needs of around 7,500 households.
The new battery system can store electricity at a rate of up to 2.2 MW. According to EnBW, the BESS is expected to perform up to two full charge-discharge cycles daily, handling about 10% of the total energy generated by the turbines.
“Hybrid farms with battery storage contribute to grid stability and offer wind farm operators flexibility in feed-in, which increases the profitability of the turbines,” an EnBW spokesperson said in a statement.
The integration of battery storage into wind operations marks a shift in EnBW’s renewable energy strategy. The company stated that it plans to include such systems as standard features in its solar parks moving forward. However, the operational characteristics differ between solar and wind applications.
While solar parks typically experience one charging cycle per day—storing energy during peak sunlight hours and feeding it into the grid in the evening—wind farm batteries can charge during night-time production and discharge in the morning, aligning with varying generation patterns.
