Bontrup
Innovate
with nature
Bontrup
Innovate
with nature

Bremanger Quarry

The “Green Quarry”

Our Bremanger Quarry, also known as the “Green Quarry” or “Green Battery”, is the future renewable energy provider for the region. The characteristics of the Bremanger area are ideal to develop a Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS) facility. This PHS facility can also serve as a green battery for excess hydropower generated elsewhere in Norway. To enable this “Green Battery”, the current extraction process also revolves around sustainability. Major innovative techniques allow us to make optimum use of gravity, which means the stone can be broken in an energy-neutral way. This is achieved with minimal impact on the landscape.

How does Pumped Hydryo Storage work?

1. Renewable energy
Norway has a huge hydro-power and wind energy potential, onshore and offshore. The recent development of wind farms in the vicinity of Bremanger underlines this potential and more developments are planned in the area.

2. Energy storage
A volume of 180 million m3 of water at an average height of 300m above sea level equates to about 150 GWh of potential energy storage. This equals a full month of household energy usage for a city like Bergen.

3. Main infrastructure
As a result of the current activities, investments in and the development of the main infrastructure elements like the tunnel, workshops, access roads and utilities have already been done. A basin is created within the mountain by extracting the rock. This process takes places inside the mountain to minimize the impact on the environment.

4. The tunnel
The tunnel between the reservoir and the sea is large enough to install the penstock pipes, valves and booster pump(s), and provides enough space for operation and maintenance.

5. The facility
The facility is located directly at the sea, where the future powerhouse and transformer station will be constructed. Workshops, offices, etc are already present.

6. Reversible pump-turbine
A reversible pump-turbine/generator acts as a combined pump and turbine generator unit (Francis turbine). The system is linked to the Norway grid, through which the consumed and produced power is distributed. At times of low electrical demand, excess generation capacity is used to pump water into the basin.

Current “Green Quarry” activities

Bontrup

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Bestone®

Bestone® conforms to the highest quality standards as a result of a unique combination of the following three properties:
• Homogeneity: Europe’s most homogeneous stone
• hardness: the low crushing value prolongs the life for any application
• high skid resistance: provides lasting skid-resistant, safe roads

With more than 1 billion tons of stone in reserve, Bremanger Quarry can guarantee delivery of consistently high-quality stone in the long term.

Applications

Road construction
The combination of the unique properties means Bestone® is by far the most common primary stone used for infrastructure in the Benelux. As a result, Bestone® makes a significant contribution to the quality and durability of the Dutch road network, which forms a part of the world’s best road networks when it comes to safety and noise reduction.

Maritime projects
Bestone® is also frequently used in maritime projects. Thorough research has been carried out into the use of Bestone® Widegrade® in breakwaters. The research shows that this material is extremely suitable for use in the core of a breakwater. It is also very convenient that the logistics and placement of this material is relatively easy. This has been proven in the construction of Maasvlakte 2 (the Netherlands) as well as the breakwater in Calais (France). See projects for more information.

Fallpipe vessels
Bremanger Quarry has delivered large volumes of 1/5″ marine building stone using the Boskalis fallpipe vessels, Jan de Nul, Tideway, and Van Oord.
Investments in recent years have made Bremanger Quarry a reliable supplier of offshore products in fallpipe vessels

Bremanger Quarry distinguishes itself thanks to its:

  • Flexibility: 24/7 loading
  • Speed: due to the high load capacity (up to 5,000 tons per hour), the location close to the open sea, and possibility to load without mooring (on DP), a very short loading cycle can be achieved

  • High production and large storage capacity
  • The right quality!