An R&D project launched by MET Group energy company, Dunamenti Power Plant and IT company Navitasoft will examine potential alternative methods of utilising renewable energy sources and how optimised automated algorithms can balance weather-dependent, intermittent power generation.
Supply must match demand and that is just as true in the energy industry as anywhere else.
“But how can we align that expectation with the particularities of green power production, increasingly gaining ground as sustainability is coming to the forefront?,” read MET’s press statement. “Renewable energy production takes up an ever-increasing share of Hungary’s electricity supply and in certain periods renewables provide a quarter of the country’s power generation.”
Issues such as climate change, the surge in green energy and the difficulties arising from these are fairly simple to understand, but the answers to problems that limit the utilisation of renewables are all the more complex.
The key, again, is digitalisation and another concept that is well-known in other energy markets: storage. In order to provide continuous supply, energy needs to be stored when the weather is sunny and windy, leaving the system oversupplied so that it can be released at times of low supply. Building up physical storage flexibility at such a scale is not viable, but digital, automated solutions can complement existing storage technology.
“Storing surplus electricity in batteries, which then can be used to release electricity at night or at times of low wind, is an ideal way to balance the fluctuations of renewable energy production,” said Dunamenti Power Plant CEO Péter Horváth. “The challenge posed by intermittent generation can be tackled by using data-driven, digital tools, in line with expectations for a carbon-neutral economy.”
The newly created aggregator platform will provide a solution to boost the flexibility of the power generation market, which comprises a range of different energy assets. The project will feature the installation of a close to 4 megawatts (MW), two-hour capacity battery on the site of Dunamenti Power Plant in Százhalombatta, Hungary. Consortium partners want to use the experience gained with the battery facility to prepare the aggregator platform so that it can efficiently accommodate other energy storage systems, based on a wider range of alternative energy sources.
“Currently there is no other dedicated solution – one that would combine the benefits of digitalisation and energy storage – available in the Hungarian market offering balancing services to renewable energy producers,” explained Navitasoft CEO Ákos Füzi. “Our goal within the framework of the consortium’s project is to provide Hungarian and foreign market players a solution that can be applied in the far-reaching optimisation of heterogeneous portfolios.”
