Younicos, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aggreko, has won a contract to supply “the first battery storage system connected to the world’s first floating wind farm”, Hywind Scotland.
A 1MW/1.3MWh lithium-ion battery system that consists of two Younicos’ Y.Cubes, 10-foot modular battery containers, will be placed at the Hywind Scotland onshore substation in Peterhead, Scotland.
The project is designed to understand how a battery can help increase the value of the renewable generated electricity, and how a battery can best work together with the wind farm and the grid.
Named Batwind, the project, will be operational from Q2 2018, was awarded to Younicos by the Norwegian oil and gas company – Statoil.
Sebastian Bringsværd (pictured), head of Hywind Development in Statoil, said the project will add Younicos’ intelligent Y.Q software as a brain on top of the battery to control it.
Bringsværd said: “We want the battery to automatically know when to hold back and store electricity, and when to send it out to the grid.”
“Battery energy storage systems have existed in the market for several years and it is rapidly developing. However, there is limited knowledge of how to make a battery act based on dynamic information, in order to maximize value of renewable energy,” Bringsværd added.
Bringsværd continued, “We believe battery storage will be key to future power systems, and with more renewables coming on it will be crucial to handle storage to ensure stability and reliability in the energy supply.”