Siemens has received an order from the energy provider SWW Wunsiedel GmbH to supply and install a battery storage system. The Siestorage system is based on lithium-ion batteries and has a capacity of more than 6 megawatts. The storage system, which will be connected to the distribution grid, will enable the company to participate in the primary control reserve market. “Energy stores, such as our Siestorage model, are an important building block of the energy transition,” says Dr. Frank Büchner, who heads the Energy Management Division in Germany. “Together with SWW Wunsiedel GmbH, we are helping to further stabilize the grids in Germany.” The energy provider and Siemens have agreed on a ten-year financing model. Commissioning is scheduled for 2018.
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The large storage system from Siemens consists of three containers with lithium-ion cells, one container with the inverters, a concrete station with the transformers and the control system. The power supplied by the storage system will provide the higher-level transmission grid with short-term support. Distributed power supply is increasing as part of Germany’s transition to a new energy mix. Integrating more and more renewable energy sources into the grids causes the volatility to increase, the base load to decrease, the medium- and top-capacity demand to grow and power surpluses to occur with increasing frequently. The grid operators need reserve power to establish a balance between generation and consumption at all times. The function of the primary control reserve is to immediately balance out unforeseen fluctuations and short-term load changes in the transmission grid. Energy stores are generally better suited to this task since they can respond in seconds, unlike the sluggish conventional power plants. All of the offered power must be available within 30 seconds in order to maintain the normal frequency of 50 Hertz and prevent a blackout. Transmission grid operators purchase the primary control reserve they need on a market basis with weekly invitations to bid.
“Installing the battery storage system is an important part of the ‘WUNsiedler Weg – Energie’ road map of SWW Wunsiedel GmbH”, says Marco Krasser, Managing Director of SWW Wunsiedel GmbH. With this road map, the company has already built a number of innovative power generation plants, thus proving that it is financially possible to cover energy demand with purely renewable and locally available energy sources. In the next step. the region is to be developed as part of Vision 2030 into a service area that can operate in isolation and thus autonomously in an emergency.
