Li-ion energy storage technology helps make smart grid for Pellworm Island even smarter
The project, which is being executed by a broad innovative consortium from industry and science, is aiming to develop a blueprint for a future decentralized energy system integrating energy storage.
Pellworm Island represents a vision of the renewable energy mix of the future – its current share of renewables already corresponds to Germany’s target for 2050. The island’s annual energy production of around 21 GWh from wind energy turbines, photovoltaic (PV) power plants and biogas plants is around three times the annual consumer load of 7 GWh. There is also a remarkably high level of night storage heaters and heat pumps. Yet, even with this large excess of local production over local consumption, the community of 1,200 people on the island still rely on their connection with the mainland grid, via two 20 kV subsea cables, both for balancing local surpluses or for importing energy at peak periods when demand exceeds supply.
A previous feasibility study had shown that Pellworm Island would be the ideal location for a smart grid project to illustrate how the energy world of the future can be realized on a small, manageable scale. This was based both on the technical suitability of the Island, including its power requirements and generation resources, as well as the willingness of the population to cooperate and the availability of suitable technology.
E.ON is now leading the implementation of this smart grid for Pellworm in a pilot project, running from 2012 to 2015, based on a combination of intelligent control technology, flexible load management and central energy storage. One of the main goals of the project is to increase the island’s self-consumption of its own renewable energy generation and to transmit less energy to the mainland. It will also demonstrate how a smart grid can relieve the pressure on Pellworm’s network infrastructure and the upstream electricity grid created by the increasing penetration of volatile renewable energy generation.
Dr. Klaus Peter Röttgen, Head of E.ON Innovation Center Energy Storage, says: “E.ON regards energy storage as a key innovation that will help improve the grid performance and especially the integration of renewable energy, and Li-ion batteries are one of the most interesting and important technologies in this sector. SmartRegion Pellworm Island is therefore a crucial lighthouse project that will enable us to evaluate how Saft’s Li-ion technology can operate in a real-world situation to help make smart grids even smarter.”
Saft Intensium Max 20 is at the heart of the decentralized hybrid storage system
Different storage technologies are being implemented on SmartRegion Pellworm as part of a decentralized hybrid storage system to cover the range of needs to store and deliver energy over time-scales ranging from ‘minutes-to-hours’ and ‘hours to days’. The ‘hours to days’ storage will be provided by a 200 kW, 1.6 MWh Vanadium Redox-Flow battery, while load flexibility in terms of ‘hours’ storage is provided by a combination of night storage heaters and heat pumps, with an average energy capacity per household of 135 kWh and an average power of 17 kW.
The ‘minutes to hours’ storage will be handled by the Saft Intensium Max 20 battery system providing 560 kWh of energy storage and 1 MW power. The Intensium Max concept has been developed specifically by Saft as a ready-to-install, megawatt-scale, fully integrated containerized Li-ion solution, to improve the network compatibility of medium to large renewable generation plant. It is designed to smooth intermittent generation and reduce ramp rates, as well as helping to manage power flows within medium voltage grids, making wind and solar energy a predictable and manageable contribution to the energy mix.
The SmartRegion Pellworm project is one of the first projects being backed by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety on the basis of a parliamentary resolution as part of the energy storage support initiative. The project partners include: E.ON (Schleswig-Holstein Netz AG and E.ON Hanse AG), Fachhochschule Westküste, Fraunhofer-Anwendungszentrum Systemtechnik, Gustav Klein GmbH, RWTH Aachen, Saft.
Visit Saft at www.saftbatteries.com
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
