On May 16, the new 22 MW Cremzow battery energy storage facility was inaugurated in the city of Cremzow, located in the German Länder of Brandenburg.
The storage system required an investment worth approximately 17 million Euros and it’s the brainchild of Enel Green Power, the German renewable energy operator ENERTRAG and the Switzerland-based energy storage solutions company Leclanché.
“The Cremzow project demonstrates how storage is increasingly becoming an integral part of renewable energy systems due to its enabling role in making them more reliable, flexible and stable.”
– Antonio Cammisecra, CEO of Enel Green Power
This facility supports the stability of Germany’s grid network by providing frequency regulation services to the country’s Primary Control Reserve (PCR) market.
The Cremzow BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) is providing the grid with a real-time primary frequency regulation service contributing to its stability. When the grid’s frequency decreases due to high power demand, the battery is able to deliver its stored energy within 30 seconds, while in response to frequency increases due to low demand, the battery is charged with the surplus energy.
Furthermore, the possibility to integrate the BESS with ENERTRAG wind farms, using the wind energy surplus to charge the batteries avoiding curtailments, is currently being studied.
“Leveraging on our expertise in the storage segment and the fruitful collaboration with our project partners, we launched this innovative storage system which allows us to contribute to the stability of the electricity transmission network around the clock in Germany, the heartland of the European PCR market.”
– Antonio Cammisecra, CEO of Enel Green Power
The BESS is owned by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) in which EGP Germany holds a 90% majority stake and ENERTRAG the remaining 10% stake.
Leclanché acts as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the project, in charge of integrating battery and power conversion systems and energy management software.
The German PCR market has evolved greatly in recent years with the early 2017 auction of approximately 600 MW of FCR attracting bidders from Austria, Belgium, France, Netherlands and Switzerland, thereby confirming the market’s cross-border appeal.
As of May 2019, the tendered PCR capacity in Germany amounts to 605 MW.
The introduction of battery storage systems is an important development in the German PCR market: in 2017, BESS provided about 200 MW of PCR, equal to about 31% of the market.