Germany’s mountainous Allgäu region in Bavaria has switched on its “first large-scale battery storage system”.
The StoraXe lithium-ion grid-balancing battery system supplied by ADS-TEC has been installed in the remote community of Bruck, adjacent to a hydroelectric power plant that serves the region run by utility Allgäuer Kraftwerke.
An ADS-TEC spokesperson told BBB the system will provide primary control reserve “and additionally cover peak load, which is very important for industry and tourism”.
The system was connected to the trans-European grid earlier this month— and there is the “possibility” of extending battery storage capacity at the site, ADS-TEC said.
The newly-founded investment company behind the project— AllgäuSpeicher GmbH & Co. KG— was formed by Germany renewables investment firm Enesto and energy provider Allgäuer Überlandwerk.
Transporting the battery system to the site was a challenge in itself— negotiating the snow-covered, mountainous countryside with small bridges and narrow roads, ADS-TEC said.
The two containers that house the system were transported by truck from ADS-TEC’s production site in Dresden, along with the transformer, inverter, control system and climate control technology.
Last month, a 2.5MW StoraXe grid-balancing battery system went online in the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein as part of a research project sponsored by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics.