In order to use renewable energies more efficiently, battery venoming is required. For experts, they are a crucial component of the energy transition. The demand is enormous.
The roller shutter manufacturer Lakal from Saarländische Saarlouis produces a large part of its electricity needs itself-with a large photovoltaic system on the roof. In order to be able to use the energy generated in this way, the company also installed a battery memory a year and a half ago. This means that the company can be kept up to two hours, even if the sun doesn't shine.
According to Lakal Managing Director Heiko Sonnkalb, the investment was worth it – ecologically and economically: “We save around 50 percent of electricity costs – and the trend is rising.” Sonnkalb expects that he will have the cost of the memory in seven years. He could well imagine a memory expansion.
Energy companies Use of memory
Such stores – only in significantly larger – are sometimes already used for energy companies. In the Duisburg-Walsum power plant, hard coal is still burned to generate electricity. This electricity is already stored in batteries.
But soon this should happen with electricity from renewable energies on a much larger scale. A new battery memory with an output of 50 megawatts is planned. It should cost an average double -digit million amount. The facility should go online as early as the coming year.
Deutsche Bahn buys shares
The special thing: Deutsche Bahn has secured around 70 percent of the storage capacity of the planned giant battery. “Even if the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow the stored green electricity,” explains Christian Karalis, project manager of the large battery storage at IQONY.
This new business model makes sense for both sides. The operator has planning security. And the train, which, as the largest German electricity consumer, wants to become climate-neutral by 2040, can claim electricity for around three million ICE kilometers annually with its share in the battery storage.
Demand for large storage increases
The establishment of a battery-reduced infrastructure is of crucial importance for experts so that the energy transition succeeds. “You can speak of a boom in terms of battery storage – also the large storage tank,” explains Claudia Kemfert, energy expert at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). This is due to the fact that the prices for the batteries have dropped significantly and that the lifetime has extended at the same time.
The storage manufacturers in particular benefit from the increased demand – such as Fluence from Erlangen. The German -American company operates worldwide and also builds the memory for Iqony in Duisburg – and currently five other large storage facilities in Germany alone. The battery modules come from Vietnam. In Germany, the topics of the storage and cybersecurity are steered in particular.
Worthwhile Business model
Fluence's turnover has been desired in the past five years – to $ 2.7 billion. “By 2030, the capacity of the installed battery stores in Europe will be roughly a fifteen,” says Lars Stephan, communication director at Fluence.
Much of growth could contribute Germany. According to the Federal Network Agency, there are currently over 1,000 project requests for large batteries. Energy price crisis, large fluctuations on the electricity markets and much more renewable online have led to rethinking.
Storage could lower electricity prices
So that large stores also benefit from large storage in the future, the framework conditions must be changed. So far, large storage facilities have mostly been regulated via the electricity market. Means: If the price is high, release electricity into the network. However, they rarely react to bottlenecks or strong network fluctuations because there are hardly any financial incentives. If you do this, this could reduce the electricity price because not so many reserve worker works or imports from abroad would be necessary.
“A noticeable effect on the electricity price would arise in two to three years if larger memory are really integrated into the network,” explains Maximilian Fichtner, from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. So that the large storage tanks are now really being built, the outdated regulatory music would have to be adjusted as quickly as possible. Countries such as Great Britain or Australia could serve as a model here. “Because if only a tenth of the plants requested are really built, we have already reached the expansion goal for 2030,” says Fichtner.
