Statoil has awarded a contract to Younicos, a provider of smart energy and grid solutions based on battery storage, to deliver a 1MW battery system that will be connected to Hywind Scotland, the world’s first floating wind farm.
The purpose of the battery storage solution project, Batwind, is to understand how a battery can learn when to store power and when to send it to the grid, increasing the value of the power, Statoil said in a 28 November statement.
"As part of Statoil's strategy of gradually supplementing our oil and gas portfolio with profitable renewable energy, getting to understand energy storage is important. With more renewables coming into production it will be crucial to handle storage to ensure predictable energy supply in periods without wind or sun. Batwind has the potential to add value by mitigating periods without wind – and by that making wind a more reliable energy producer year around. This could expand the use and market for wind and renewables in the future," Sebastian Bringsværd, head of Hywind Development in Statoil, commented in the statement.
While battery energy storage systems have been on the market several years, knowledge is limited on making a battery act on dynamic information to maximize the value of renewable energy. Bringsværd said Batwind includes software to ensure the battery behaves the way Statoil wants it to behave.
The battery storage solution project, Batwind, will start operations in Q2 2018. The two 10-foot modular battery containers will be placed at the Hywind Scotland onshore substation in Peterhead, Scotland.
Hywind started operations last month. Statoil is operator of Hywind with 75% interest; Masdar is partner with 25%.
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