German political and energy leaders celebrated the first anniversary of Europe’s first commercial battery plant on Tuesday.
Designed and built within 12 months by energy storage systems developer Younicos, the fully automated 5 MW facility is housed in a hall the size of a school gym in Schwerin-Lankow, Germany.
The battery contains 25,600 lithium-manganese oxide cells that can store and discharge power in milliseconds. The cells have been guaranteed for 20 years by cell producers Samsung SDI.
Five medium-voltage transformers, connect the battery to the regional distribution and 380 kV high-voltage grids.
The battery, built for the German utility Wemag Ag, has a rated power of 5 Megawatts and a capacity of 5 Megawatt-hours. It helps to stabilize the grid frequency in the wind-swept area.
At the heart of the system is AC battery management (SCBM), power plant management (BPPM) and a SCADA-integrated energy management system.
The facility has already generated higher than expected revenues, as prices for primary frequency control have been much higher than anticipated.
“Thanks to stable prices at the primary control power market and our optimized bid process we were able to realize revenues far above expectations at the time of the investment decision,” said Thomas Pätzhold, CTO of WEMAG.
* Younicos has just launched its first hardware product, the plug-and-play energy storage system ‘Y.Cube‘, which combines lithium-ion battery blocks with a power conversion system (PCS) that is controlled by energy storage software.
