Bulgaria’s NEK deploying BESS at hydropower plants

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The company aims to add a 10MWh BESS unit to its new Vacha 1 hydropower plant by the end of 2025 and has launched a call to do the same at four others. Those four have a total expense cited by reports of €63.2 million (US$65 million).

On 20 January, NEK announced four separate notification of investment intentions for energy storage systems, in the towns of Boynik, Aleko Konstantinov, Muhovo and Devin in the Kardzhali, Pazardzhik, Sofia and Smolyan regions respectively. Those locations are in the south and west of Bulgaria.

The announcements didn’t give more information than that, but local reports said the four additional BESS units will total ‘at least’ 279MWh.

The reports indicate the hydropower plants are run-of-river, while NEK also has substantial pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plants both operating and in construction across Bulgaria.

The BESS will help to optimise the production of the five hydropower plants, and will be deployed with configurations of between two and three hours and capable of at least 6,000 cycles. The four additional hydropower plants to have co-located BESS are Studen Kladenets, Aleko, Devin and Topolnitsa, the reports add.

Bulgaria was in the headlines late last year after a 3GWh standalone energy storage tender, funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience programme, was oversubscribed by a factor of four.

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