The Polish energy generator and distributor, TAURON, announced yesterday that it has connected an industrial energy storage facility in Ochotnica Dolna, a village located in south-eastern Poland (Małopolskie Voivodeship), to its power grid. The new industrial energy storage has a power of 100 kW and a capacity of 180 kWh, enabling a reliable operation of the surrounding photovoltaic (PV) installations.
The criteria for the location of the storage facility was based on the highest density of 1-phase micro-installations in the country.
“The number of operating micro-installations in our area is constantly growing. Only in the first three quarters of this year, over 93,300 micro-installations were connected to our network, with a total capacity of over 768 MW. In total, we already have over 370,000 connected with a capacity of 2.8 GW,” said Paweł Szczeszek, President of the Management Board of the TAURON Group.
“We know that such a huge number of distributed generation sources destabilises the operation of the grid. That is why it is so important – on the one hand, to invest in the modernisation and adaptation of the power grid to cooperation with RES, and on the other hand, to search for solutions that will help the existing power system to cooperate with the green generation,” he pointed out.
As stated by TAURON, the energy stored in the installation in Ochotnica Dolna will meet the daily energy needs of 25 households in the area. The storage facility was created as a result of cooperation between TAURON Dystrybucja, ZPUE SA from Włoszczowa, the local authorities of Ochotnica Dolna and the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków.
The storage facility is primarily designed to stabilise the voltage in the distribution network, which, as a result, enables the reliable operation of prosumer PV installations connected to the network. Therefore, the facility is located within a low-voltage network with a large concentration of 2 kW photovoltaic micro-installations. Ochotnica Dolna has been gradually increasing the share of PV installations in its area for several years.
At present, the region of Ochotnica Dolna has one of the highest density coefficients of 1-phase micro-installations in Poland, which periodically limits the ability of prosumers to transfer energy to the grid. Consequently, exceeded levels and voltage asymmetry cause temporary shutdowns of the installations. In addition, potential future investors may be discouraged from PV due to the detrimental impact that this limited infrastructure has on such investments (ie. reduced profitability).
Building momentum
This is a second industrial energy storage facility launched in the Ochotnica Dolna area. The first one has been operating in the system since July this year and fulfils a similar function.
“This initiative is another of a series of activities undertaken by the commune together with the economic environment in order to popularise modern energy technologies. With such activities, we primarily ensure energy security for the inhabitants of the commune, but it is also a demonstration of the direction in which widely understood distributed energy, or rather civic energy, should go,” said Tadeusz Królczyk, Mayor of the Ochotnica Dolna commune (municipality).
According to TAURON, the experience gained throughout the testing of the first energy storage facility in the Ochotnica Dolna municipality confirmed the positive impact of this type of equipment on the stabilisation of the grid. After the first period of operation, it is clear that storage facilities can be the basis for more flexible cooperation between the production and consumption of energy and RES.
This year, TAURON Dystrybucja has also launched a stationary electricity storage system in Cieszanowice (Opolskie Voivodeship) with a capacity of 3 MW and a usable capacity of 774 kWh. The energy is stored in lithium-titanium battery cells. The Opole energy storage system was built at the Main Power Supply Point Cieszanowice in the Kamienna municipality. The task of this power station is, among other things, to transfer electricity generated in the nearby wind farm in Lipniki to the grid. Albeit on a larger scale, the storage system fulfils the same stabilising function for the grid as the new facility in Ochotnica Dolna.
Separately, TAURON recently confirmed that over 4 GW of installed capacity from renewable energy sources and micro-installations had been connected to the company’s grid, since the end of October.
