National Grid Saudi Arabia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), is evaluating bids for the contract or contracts to supply battery energy storage systems (bess) with a total combined capacity of up to 2,500MW.

According to a source familiar with the project, the SEC entity solicited bids directly from equipment manufacturers, including China’s Sungrow, Hithium and Huawei, among others, to supply batteries. An engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor will install the batteries.

It is understood that SEC has tendered the EPC package or packages separately.

MEED previously reported that the planned facilities, each with a capacity of 500MW or roughly 2,000 megawatt-hours, are located in or within proximity of the following key cities and load centres:

• Riyadh
• Qaisumah
• Dawadmi
• Al-Jouf
• Rabigh

The main applications for the planned bess facilities include load shifting, black start, frequency regulation and voltage support.

They are envisaged to replace part-load operation of existing power plants by charging and discharging electricity according to system load variations and primary and secondary reserves, among other potential applications.

In August, National Grid SA awarded the EPC contracts for three energy storage systems to Riyadh-based investment group Algihaz Holding.

The projects are located in Najran, Madaya and Khamis Mushait.

According to an industry source, the contracts are valued at more than $800m.

Surging growth

The overall capacity of deployed battery energy storage systems globally is expected to reach 127GW by 2027, up from an estimated cumulative deployment of 36.7GW at the end of 2023, according to GlobalData.

The global information services provider cited Chinese companies BYD and CATL and South Korean companies LG Energy Solutions and Samsung SDI among the top battery technology providers globally.

Carmakers Tesla, Volkswagen, Stellantis, General Motors, Mitsubishi Motors and Hyundai were identified as the key end markets for battery products so far.

GlobalData expects battery energy storage deployment to increase “due to a large number of countries opting for battery storage systems to enhance their power sector transformation”.