France’s Schneider Electric and Saft have agreed to develop and supply an electrical energy storage system (EESS) to industrial and commercial energy users.
The EESS will feature Saft Li-ion battery technology with scalable battery blocks of 100 kW power rating with 50 kWh storage capacity. The battery components integrate with the Schneider Electric power conversion system, and will respond to commands from a smart gateway and cloud-based platform.
In a statement, the firms said that the combined power conversion and battery storage systems will help businesses maximize self-consumption of onsite generation, optimize energy bills, enable more remunerative participation in demand-response programmes, and provide a backup power supply to help ride through grid blackouts.
The first combined energy storage system will be installed during the summer of 2013 for Syndicat Départemental d’Énergies du Morbihan (SDEM), in the Brittany region of France. The project will involve the design and construction of the country’s first demonstrator prototype of a smart grid-ready energy storage and management system for an office building.
The complete solution will integrate electric vehicles and maximize consumption from local solar and wind energy production, while helping maintain power availability during potential grid blackouts.
