Solar power storage units reduce transition costs

Expensive and controversial grid extension measures can be reduced in this way. The solar power storage system with a 76kW/h battery unit recently started operation at HIU and supplies the building with electricity.

“The transformation of the energy system in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and Europe is a big challenge. Modern storage technologies are a major approach to solving this problem,” says Simone Schwanitz, Director-General, Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts. “With this system, the KIT builds a bridge between fundamental research and application.”

“The solar power storage system at our institute in Ulm shows what future-oriented technologies for the transformation of the energy system may be like,” comments Ulrich Breuer, Vice President, Finance and Business Affairs, KIT. “We demonstrate that economy and ecology do not exclude each other, but may give rise to marketable solutions.”

“Strengthening and clustering of the competences of Ulm University, KIT, and the other partners for research into and development of modern battery technologies at HIU has now started to bear fruit,” says Karl Joachim Ebeling, President, Ulm University. “The solar power storage system at Ulm is a successful contribution to the Energiewende.”

“The storage system provides multiple benefits for our institute,” comments Horst Hahn, Director, HIU. “Firstly, KIT can study intelligent control strategies for a grid-compatible operation of solar storage units. Secondly, this system will be used to test novel battery materials under real operation conditions in the future. The new storage system will also serve as a test laboratory and, as a by-product of research, it supplies electricity for the operation of the institute.”

The storage system is equipped with a smart control unit developed by KIT. It ensures that electricity is not fed into the public distribution grid. Grid load is reduced by cutting the supply peaks of the photovoltaics system and the load peaks of the consumers at the institute. Hence, economically efficient and grid-compatible system operation is guaranteed. An autonomous, self-learning prognosis tool calculates the consumption and production data to be expected and, on this basis, optimises energy management over the day.

“The control is the brain of the facility. Here, it is decided what happens with the solar power. In fact, this is a highly complicated task, because the expected solar energy yield has to be distributed in the institute and battery, such that optimum efficiency is reached,” says Nina Munzke. Munzke is responsible for software development under the Competence E Project of KIT. “For the development of a reliable, energy- and cost-optimised operational management system, two years of hard work of our team were required. Now, we are all happy that the software works in a real application and everything runs smoothly.”

The next step planned by KIT is the commercialisation of the software by a startup company.