Total to Add Largest Lithium-Ion Storage System in France

French oil-gas giant Total S.A. is set to build a 25 MW/25 MWh lithium-ion storage system in Mardyck in northern France. The oil giant plans to commission the facility by the end of this year.

Total S.A., where the office headquartered in La Défense district in Courbevoie, west of Paris is a French, is a multinational integrated oil and gas company founded in 1924 and one of the seven "Supermajor" oil companies in the world. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading. The oil giant is also a large-scale chemicals manufacturer.

The oil giant has begun construction of what is called to be "the largest battery-powered electricity storage project in France" at a former oil refinery in Mardyck, near the port of Dunkirk.

The energy storage system, which costs 15 million Euros and has a capacity of 25 MW/25 MWh, will use the company's wholly-owned subsidiary Saft's Intensium Max 20 High Energy solution. It will include 11 integrated containers with capacities of 2.3 MWh each, sent over from Saft’s production site in Bordeaux. The oil giant said that the lithium-ion storage system will be put into use at the end of this year, and will primarily reserve support to stabilize the grid of transmission system operator RTE. Total, through its subsidiaries.

The company has become one of the winners of France's long-term auction (AOLT). The group secured a 58 MW lithium-ion storage system project to be built from 2021 to 2027, and a 45 MW system to be completed between 2022 and 2028. The French group has set a goal of making low-carbon electricity account for 15%-20% of its sales mix by 2040. At present, it has almost 7 GW of low-carbon power production assets, including 3 GW renewable energy plants.

Relying on over 40% of the storage point capacity allocated in the first round of bidding organized by RTE, the company was the main winner of AOLT. Patrick Pouyanné, Total’s Chairman and CEO, said: "This was possible thanks to the skills of the Total Flex team, specialist in the aggregation of renewable energy, and Saft, the European leader in batteries for stationary storage."

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