Plans to build a 22MW lithium-ion battery storage plant online in Germany in April have been announced by the renewables subsidiary of Italian energy giant Enel.
Enel Green Power (EGP) has signed a contract with German wind developer Enertrag and Swiss battery maker Leclanché to build and operate the lithium-ion battery in Cremzow.
The facility, which will cost an estimated EUR17 million ($20.9m), will be built by Leclanché and owned by a special-purpose entity in which EGP Germany has a 90% majority stake and Enertrag the remaining 10%.
The first 2MW section of the Cremzow facility is expected to be operational in April 2018. The whole facility is expected to be launched by the end of this year.
The plant aims to provide real-time frequency regulation services to Germany’s primary control reserve market to stabilise the grid, Enel said. When the grid’s frequency decreases due to high power demand, the battery will release its stored energy, while in reverse, the battery is charged with the surplus energy.
The battery will later be integrated with Enertrag’s wind farms so that surplus energy produced by those facilities will charge the battery— reducing the need to curtail wind power generation when it is higher than demand on the grid.
Leclanché CEO Anil Srivastava said: “Battery energy storage systems have a very significant role to play in stabilising grids as the world transitions to greater use of variable renewable energy sources. They also help reduce the huge waste of renewable energy that is curtailed when grids are at capacity.”