SMEGSolar Ltd, part of Hungarian renewable energy installer STS Group, has received EUR 35.8 million (USD 42.8m) in debt to bankroll 21 MW/84 MWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Hungary.
Italian lender UniCredit provided the funding, STS said on Thursday. The company will allocate the fresh proceeds to develop, build and operate two battery sites with capacities on the outskirts of Balatonbereny and Tereske, respectively. The projects represent a combined investment of around HUF 14.7 billion (USD 46.1m/EUR 38.6m), of which HUF 2.16 billion will come from grant funding under Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.
The installation of both BESS is already underway, with their commissioning scheduled for the end of April. The 3-MW/10.8-MWh Balatonbereny facility will deploy redox flow battery technology and will be co-located with an existing small-scale solar plant. The 18-MW/73.2-MWh Tereske BESS will be a lithium iron phosphate system, also alongside an existing solar park.
The two batteries will provide frequency containment reserves (FCR) and frequency restoration reserves (FRR) services. Their operation will enhance the power network’s flexibility and help ease grid constraints
