BE: Engie installs new wind park + charging island
In cooperation with Engie, the port of Zeebrugge becomes the location of the largest onshore wind farm in Flanders with a total capacity of 44 MW. Engie will also install the country’s largest EV charging island with 308 charging points by EVBox.
To be precise, the wind park will be Flanders’ largest onshore wind project carried out by one operator on a single site. The energy produced by the eleven turbines will be available to the local community and moored ships in the second half of 2020.
However, this is not Engie’s only green energy project in Belgium. Earlier this year, the company developed what it calls “the largest electric charging island” in Belgium, supplying 308 charging points. EVBox, Engie’s own EV charging subsidiary manufactured the charging stations. The huge hub has been operational since February 2019 and can charge up to 100,000 electric vehicles per year thanks to the island’s capacity to produce 3.4 MW of electricity, according to the company.
Yet, the integration of the two projects has been hailed by another partner, International Car Operators (ICO). Says Marc Adriansens, Managing Director of ICO Zeebrugge: “EV vehicles are rapidly entering the market—so with an additional supply of 44 MW of green electricity, ICO is ready to accommodate these EVs. The installation of this wind farm fits in with the further expansion of ICO’s flagship terminal.” Said installation at the port of Zeebrugge covers a surface area of 200 ha and a 3.2 km quay. The annual production amounts to no less than 110 GWh, enough to supply approximately 30,000 households with electricity and keep 50,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions out of the air every year, according to ICO.
Fun fact: Zeebrugge port has been the point of entry for some of the first Tesla Model 3 to arrive in Europe in February 2019 as reported. Obviously, once the Gigafactory 4 near Berlin will be up and running likely by 2021, those imports will become less or dry up entirely.
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