"Best Yet” Battery Design to Stabilise Solar Power for Grid

[kristopher]

1. Batteries the size of buildings

Batteries the size of buildings

At the end of April, German firm Younicos announced that Europe's first "battery farm" could go into commercial operation next year in cooperation with the local utility.

On April 26, I argued that we need to move beyond thinking of battery storage as something linked to solar power alone – and that large battery storage systems installed at grid nodes might be a better option than distributed battery systems connected to solar roof arrays. The goal would be not to store solar or even renewable power, but grid power – including nuclear and fossil.

Just three days after that article was published, Berlin-based Younicos announced the construction of a 5 MW lithium-ion battery farm that will go into commercial operation in mid-2014 – provided, the firm is quick to point out, that the state funding applied for is granted for this pilot project. As the firm's CEO Clemens Triebel puts it in a press release (in German), "Every megawatt of installed battery capacity replaces a tenfold amount of dispatchable conventional capacity."

The exciting thing about this approach is ...

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/batteries-the-size-of-buildings/150/537/62639/