The Utena Battery Park in Lithuania is expected to be completed by the end of the year, as Energy cells, the operator of the electricity storage system, has recently delivered all the necessary equipment. Later this month, the battery cubes and other equipment will be connected and testing will commence. The entire project to improve the security of the energy system is thus expected to be completed with all four battery parks installed by the end of 2022.
“The Energy cells energy storage facility system is particularly important before synchronisation with the continental European grids, the battery parks will ensure uninterrupted electricity supply in the country,” said Dainius Kreivys, Lithuania’s Minister of Energy. “After synchronisation, the battery parks will be able to store solar or wind energy and release it during peak consumption hours. This in turn will contribute to lower electricity prices.”
“We have reached an important milestone in the project, all the equipment needed for the energy storage facility system is already in Lithuania,” added the CEO of Energy cells, Rimvydas Štilinis. “Transformers, inverters and controllers have been transported to the battery parks and the battery cubes have arrived in Utena. The remaining battery parks will receive the energy storage units in September.”
The energy storage facility system of 312 battery cubes, 78 each in battery parks in Vilnius, Šiauliai and Alytus and Utena regions, will provide Lithuania with an instantaneous energy reserve. The Energy cells storage facility system to be integrated into the Lithuanian grid will have a total combined capacity of 200 megawatts (MW) and 200 megawatt-hours (MWh).
The parks with lithium-ion batteries, produced by a consortium created by the companies Fluence and Siemens Energy from the US and Germany, will operate as a single system, making it one of the largest and one of the first systems in Europe. The energy storage system will be able to deliver electricity to the grid in one second.
Energy cells expects to launch the instantaneous isolated operating reserve service in December this year. The Utena Battery Park is the fastest in progress, as this part of the system is planned to be tested during the isolated energy system operation tests.
The 87.6 million euros funding has been allocated to Energy cells for the installation of an electricity storage facilities system from the New Generation Lithuania package, under the EU‘s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) NextGenerationEU recovery plan. The total value of the project that will ensure instantaneous energy reserve and isolated operation for Lithuania will amount to 109 million euros.
One hundred per cent of shares of Energy cells, which was appointed as the energy storage facility system operator, belongs to the EPSO-G energy transmission and exchange group of companies. The rights and responsibilities of the sole shareholder of EPSO-G are implemented by the Ministry of Energy of Lithuania.
