Green electricity with no fluctuations thanks to the biggest commercial battery park

“Smooth sailing for the wind and sun” is a phrase heard around Wemag, a green power provider based in the German city of Schwerin, and at Younicos, an energy specialist based in Berlin. These two companies joined together to open Europe’s first commercial battery park to compensate for short-term fluctuations in the wind powered region where Wemag operates.

The 5-megawatt battery park with a 5 megawatt-hours capacity will begin compensating for fluctuations lasting just milliseconds caused by wind gusts and clouds as well as by short-term changes in energy consumption this September.

Until now, this task was primarily the responsibility of energy carriers that rely on thermal power plants running on fossil fuels. The catch: these power plants only use up to 10% of their capacity to make short-term upward and downward “adjustments”. The rest is fed into the power grid, even if wind and solar sources are already providing enough power.

Batteries, on the other hand, are not “must-run” power sources and are also faster and more precise than coal-fired power plants. This means that every megawatt of installed batteries replaces 10 megawatts of conventional power that is otherwise needed to stabilise the power supply.

Software from Berlin start-up company Younicos, ensures that the batteries are always either fully charged or able to accept more power. The software also optimises the battery life so well that South Korea’s Samsung Corporation placed a 20-year performance guarantee on the lithium ion batteries it manufactures for use in the battery park.

HELUKABEL® supplied the medium voltage, grounding and data cables used to connect the battery park to the power grid. These cables guarantee that the green electricity can be supplied without any complications and that the battery park is fully integrated with the power distribution network and connected to the 380-kV high voltage grid.

- Read less