Solarplaza: Batteries solving grid problems indispensable for future European energy transition

PRAGUE, Oct. 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- To mitigate problems and increasing curtailment costs of wind and PV-parks in Europe, clean energy storage in batteries is essential, experts state. Batteries will become a vital part of the new European energy infrastructure, which will be a combination of solar, wind and storage, they say.

"We are developing, building and operating utility scale Solar PV projects in the UK and across Europe, and in the last twelve months we develop the majority of our projects to be either co-located or at least 'storage ready' from day one," says Joshua Murphy, head of energy storage at Econergy, a renewable energy IPP that operates across 6 different regions with over 400MW of solar, and 102MWhs of battery storage projects in commercial operation and ready for connection. The international expert is one of the speaker at the Solarplaza Summit Asset Management Europe, taking place in Prague on 15 and 16 October.

2023 was a record year for the European solar industry, with 56 GW of new solar additions expanding the total PV capacity base towards 263 GW. As the full-year figure for 2024 is projected to reach 62 GW, the industry is set for another record year with 11% of market growth. The main questions are: where will all this renewable energy be used or stored without causing grid-related problems like imbalance or congestion, which are increasing in a lot of European countries? And how can the industry keep on growing while mitigating curtailment costs?

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are one of the most important answers to these questions, experts state. "As a response to the increase of renewable penetration, we need to manage the energy efficiently across the network, to avoid throwing away lots of renewable energy," Murphy says. Countries like Spain and Greece are producing large amounts of solar energy, but often not on peak demand time, causing the grid to step in to curtail production. That's where batteries come in to store that energy for later use. If they don't, new PV parks will be more difficult to connect to the grid. "Therefore it's becoming more challenging in countries with high levels of curtailment to make a business case for solar without a battery," he says.

To increase the BESS market, the biggest challenge for banks and investors is to calculate the risks and revenues of batteries. "No one can really give the proper answer to that," says Stefan Müller, co-founder and shareholder of Enerparc AG, an international specialist in the whole value chain of large-scale photovoltaic power plants. Batteries can stabilize the grid with frequency response and balancing services, for which grid operators are willing to pay. Or they can trade on the free APEX market for electricity, charging when prices are low and selling when prices are high. "This is what we have to explain to banks and investors. The market is there, but it is a highly volatile market," says Müller.

Enerparc currently owns 500 PV-plants in Europe with a total of 3 GW. New systems combine a 25-megawatt PV plant with 10 megawatts of storage. The company is handling the complete trading of this clean electricity on the energy markets, for itself and for other clients. For instance for wind farm owners. That allowed Enerparc to for the first time sign a baseload PPA last year, which guarantees to provide a consistent, fixed amount of green energy. To do so, the company has to balance its own utility power delivery, making storage more important. "PV is not a single business unit anymore. We are part of the new infrastructure. We have to find out how we can balance the grid, by mixing solar and wind, bio-energy and storage systems," Müller says.