IElectrix: Mobile BESS to mitigate distribution bottlenecks
IElectrix, a Horizon 2020-funded project, has released results illustrating the benefits of using mobile Battery-based Energy Storage Systems (BESS) to alleviate distribution network bottlenecks and increase capacity for renewable energy.
According to energy company E.ON, which handled the project’s technical management, such mobile storage systems are able to avoid network bottlenecks in the distribution network at short notice and help prevent the need to shut down decentralised generation plants.
Their use can also bridge the time needed until necessary distribution grid expansion and flexibility can be increased.
The integration of a large number of renewable energy plants into the electricity distribution grids poses challenges for grid operators in many places.
This is because power generation is becoming increasingly volatile and the network expansion required to accommodate this is taking time.
Mark Ritzmann, managing director at E.ON Group Innovation, said: “Meeting the Paris climate targets is an important milestone on our path to a sustainable energy future. Tomorrow’s energy world will be characterised by flexible consumers and producers of green energy.
“To effectively integrate these prosumers into our existing distribution grid infrastructure, innovative and digital solutions like IElectrix are necessary complements to an efficient grid expansion.
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As part of the IElectrix project, E.ON investigated the contribution that battery-based storage systems can make to meeting the challenges of the energy transition at locations such as Hungary and Germany.
Three points summarise the project findings:
- BESS can more easily overcome technical hurdles that may arise from already busy power grids when connecting renewable capacity. They can absorb voltage peaks so that photovoltaic parks, for example, can be connected to the grid that might otherwise have to wait several years for a grid connection.
- Mobile battery storage systems allow locally generated energy to be used more efficiently directly on site. This is a basic prerequisite for the emergence of so-called energy communities, such as ‘Adeje Verde’ on Tenerife.
- Energy communities promote the participation of local people in the energy transition. Through them, households, businesses or municipalities can jointly consume, store and/or sell locally generated renewable energy. BESS enable better coordination for a more equitable distribution of grid capacity.
Under French DSO ENEDIS’s consortium leadership, IElectrix was part of Horizon 2020, the EU’s largest research and innovation program.
Within three and a half years, 15 project partners from eight EU countries, alongside Indian distribution grid operator TATA Power DDL, jointly developed mobile storage systems as a fast and cost-effective solution to local challenges in the distribution grid.
The project was also part of the EU Project Zone in 2021 and forms part of the Enlit World project directory.
