Battery storage power station

A battery storage power plant is a form of storage power plant, which uses batteries on an electrochemical basis for energy storage. Unlike common storage power plants, such as the pumped storage power plants with capacities up to 1000 MW, the benefits of battery storage power plants move in the range of a few kW up to the MW range - the largest installed systems (1/2017) reach capacities of up to 300 MWh . Battery storage power plants, like all storage power plants, primarily serve to cover peak load and in networks with insufficient control power and the grid stabilization. Small battery storage called solar batteries with few kWh storage capacity, are mostly in the private sector operated in conjunction with similarly sized photovoltaic systems to daytime bring revenue surpluses in yield poorer or unproductive hours in the evening or at night, and to strengthen their own consumption. Sometimes battery storage power stations are built with flywheel storage power systems in order to conserve battery power. Flywheels can handle rapid fluctuations better.

Structurally battery storage power plants and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) are comparable, although the former are larger. The batteries are housed for security in their own warehouses or in containers. As with a UPS, the problem is that electrochemical energy is stored or emitted in the form of direct current DC, while electric power networks are usually operated with Alternating current AC voltage. For this reason, additional inverters are needed to connect the battery storage power plants to the high voltage network. This kind of power electronics include GTO thyristors, commonly used in the high-voltage direct current transmission (HVDC). Various accumulator systems may be used depending on the power-to-energy ratio, the expected life time and, of course, the costs. In the 1980s, lead-acid batteries were used for the first battery-storage power plants. During the next few decades, nickel-cadmium and sodium-sulfur battery were increasingly used. Since 2010, more and more utility-scale battery storage plants rely on lithium-ion batteries thanks to the fast decrease in the cost of this technology, driven by the electric automotive industry. This is the case of the battery Park Schwerin, the battery storage in Dresden or the storage of BYD in Hong Kong. Since 2015, lithium-ion batteries are mainly used, some redox flow system have merged and lead-acid batteries are still used in small budget applications. There are numerous suppliers of large battery storage.

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