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Fire-resistant retaining walls as protection for battery containers

Koninklijke Dekker Hout has opened one of the first mega-battery parks in the Netherlands. For this project, Bosch Beton has installed prefab retaining walls as fire-resistant partition walls. The retaining walls not only ensure the required fire-resistance, but also save space, providing a sustainable solution for this innovative energy storage facility.

Sustainable timber trade

Koninklijke Dekker Hout is a producer and dealer in ready-to-use wood/composite products and semi-finished products. From its base in Vianen, the company distributes its products in the Dutch market and abroad. In addition, Dekker Hout has machinery for processing wood and wood products for their own stock and customer-specific orders. As one of the timber companies in the Netherlands with the most pioneering approach, it is actively committed to the environment by, among other things, generating heat energy from burning sawdust and generating electrical energy with more than 40,000 solar panels on the roofs.

Based on its ambition to be self-sufficient in energy, the company has spent the last few years working on a solution to store energy from solar panels. For this purpose, they have set up an area with 12 mega-batteries at their site in Vianen. This stores the energy from the solar panels, allowing it to be used when the sun is not shining, or traded on the balancing market. Koninklijke Dekker Hout not only benefits from the power generated itself, but also provides approximately 8,000 households with electricity. It also helps the regional grid operator to avoid grid congestion by charging or discharging batteries on demand.

Fire-resistant retaining wall solution

Fire-resistant storage of the batteries is essential to ensure the safety of the mega-battery park. We have been able to make our contribution to this aspect of this innovative project by installing our retaining walls as fire-resistant partition walls. For this, we have used LA retaining walls, three metres in height and in various lengths, with various corner elements. These retaining walls meet the specified fire-resistance requirement, with the result that they provide safe storage for the batteries.

Apart from fire-resistance, space saving was a decisive factor for the client Dekker Hout. We contributed to this by shortening the base of a large part of the walls, thereby avoiding unused space and allowing the battery containers to fit exactly between the walls. The mould-smooth finish of Bosch Beton retaining walls was an added advantage, allowing the retaining walls to be decorated after installation with a mural showing Dekker Hout’s logo.

Further information

If you would like to know more about this project or about the custom solutions we are able to provide with our retaining walls for chemical storage, please consult our consultants free of obligation.