CATL to Build Giga Storage's 1.4 GWh Battery in Germany
Giga Storage closed €260 million from seven banks for its 350 MW, 1.4 GWh Albatross battery in Lower Saxony. CATL will engineer and maintain it. Amprion signed a 380 kV connection. Commissioning is now early 2029.
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No official site photo was on a company release. ESS News published an artist impression, which is not used here. CATL is the named builder.
Illustration (AI-generated)
Giga Storage has closed €260 million of debt for its Albatross battery near Neuenkirchen in Lower Saxony, a 350 MW, 1.4 GWh system that ESS News says CATL will engineer, build and maintain, with commissioning now set for early 2029.
Amprion said the Oct. 14 contract is its first for a large battery. Commissioning moved from 2028 to early 2029.
Illustration (AI-generated)
ESS News reported on Oct. 26 that seven banks are lending the Dutch developer that €260 million, which it also gave as $281 million: ABN Amro, Hamburg Commercial Bank, ING, Rabobank, Siemens Financial Services through Siemens Bank, SMBC and Société Générale. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2027. ESS News said the project has a four-hour duration. The site will hold 264 battery containers, 96 medium-voltage transformers and two high-voltage transformers. CATL will work with several European subcontractors, the developer said.
A transmission connection, and a later start
Giga Storage also signed a grid agreement with transmission operator Amprion, concluded on Oct. 14. Amprion said this is its first connection contract for a large battery. The system connects directly to the 380 kV network at the Merzen substation. ESS News said the project had reached ready-to-build status in early October, when Giga Storage still expected a final investment decision in the fourth quarter and commissioning in 2028. The financing announcement moves commissioning to early 2029.
Albatross is the developer's first utility-scale storage project in Germany. Giga Storage said that, together with Leopard in the Netherlands and Green Turtle in Belgium, it has about 1.4 GW and 5.6 GWh under construction. Those totals are the company's portfolio, not a second measure of Albatross. The grid fact at this site is narrower: 350 MW injected at one 380 kV node, with the transmission operator, not a distribution utility, as the counterparty. ERCOT's storage fleet reached 33.1 GWh, Voltgrid reported on Oct. 26, which is a market total rather than one project of this size.
What the loan does not settle
ESS News does not give a cell chemistry, a price per kilowatt-hour or an offtaker for the stored energy. The €260 million is debt, not a stated total project cost. Ready-to-build status came earlier in October. This week's news is the financing close, the signed Amprion contract and the move of commissioning from 2028 to early 2029.
