Every Estonian solar park will soon have a battery storage system that tracks the stock exchange price
Photo by Jarek Jõepera
The electricity exchange has revealed the current bottlenecks in renewable energy, the biggest challenge of which has so far been storage capacity that would help balance peak production and consumption. According to Raivo Videvik, CEO of Diotech, we will see a multiplication of storage capacities in the coming years for both large and small renewable energy producers, as the technology becomes increasingly accessible.
Diotech recently opened Estonia’s largest battery storage system based on LG Energy Solution technology in Auvere together with Eesti Energia. “For us, this was the first major project in the Baltics, which provided the necessary know-how regarding both system architecture and the implementation of storage technology, which we can use in various energy production solutions in the future,” said Raivo Videvik, CEO of Diotech.
Although Diotech is ready to undertake even more extensive work, at the moment it seems that there is greater demand in the market for storage solutions for solar parks built on fields. Several industrial customers who have already built solar power plants also want to further reduce energy costs by adding batteries.
“While storage technology was something experimental and expensive five years ago, today, even the smallest solar park can set up a storage system with relatively little effort and at a reasonable cost,” said Videvik.
The battery system can be made to operate according to the stock exchange price
A typical storage system consists of batteries, inverters and a control system. “Based on the customer’s needs, it is possible to proceed from there by offering a completely tailor-made solution, up to and including integration with the charging infrastructure for electric cars or buses. The conditions under which the battery charges and the conditions under which electricity is sold back to the grid can be made dependent on the customer’s needs, the time of renewable energy production, the hourly price on the stock exchange or the conditions of current subsidies,” said Videvik.
The average investment in a battery storage system usually pays off in up to 5 years, but by applying cross-market trading logic to maximize the profitability of the battery cycle, it is possible to achieve a return on investment even more than twice as fast. “It all depends on how efficiently a battery station with a high capacity can be implemented in relation to the customer’s connection point, taking into account all the conditions,” explained Videvik.
“If we look at global trends, in the coming years the price of building battery storage systems, like the price of renewable energy solutions, will tend to move downwards, but technological capabilities will move upwards. This in turn ensures that both solar and wind energy will become increasingly competitive compared to fossil fuels,” said Videvik.
