A solar-plus-storage project has been commissioned in Saxony, Germany, the first in the state from the recent ‘innovation tenders’ to do so.
The project pairs a 13.5MWp solar PV array with a 3.7MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) from Intilion, the lithium-ion energy storage arm of the Hoppecke battery company.
Developer and independent power producer (IPP) Qair Energy developed the project in collaboration with the utility Stadtwerke Leipzig which will operate the site in Priestewitz, in the district of Meißen.
The companies claimed that the project is the first in the state from the Federal Network Agency’s innovation tenders for co-located projects to connect to the grid in Saxony. The tender, which took place in two lots in early and late 2021, saw around 400MW of energy storage capacity awarded contracts.
The contracts allow asset owners to receive a fixed Eurocents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) sum, in addition to market-based revenues they are able to earn. But they require the energy storage portion to only charge from the renewables, something which has been criticised by industry participants interviewed by Energy-Storage.news for a special report on the Germany market for PV Tech Power (sister site PV Tech’s quarterly journal).
Priestewitz Mayor Manuela Gajewi said: “The construction of new photovoltaic systems and wind power should not be the only goal for the expansion of renewable energy: more efficient systems, the expansion of the distribution grid and the development of efficient energy storage solutions must be the focus.”
“After all, what use is green energy if it does not arrive at the place and time where and when it is needed. We are therefore pleased that the linking of green energy with innovative storage technology is being used in our community of Priestewitz.”
A media statement added that a subsidy-free green power purchase agreement (PPA) with a fixed term and fixed price was concluded with the funding partner Umweltbank. Umweltbank focuses on ecology and energy transition loans.
The first innovation tender solar-plus-storage projects in Germany started coming online last year, with energy firm RWE announcing it was ‘weeks away’ from turning on a 14.4MW PV, 9.6MWh project in April 2022.
The utility-scale market picked up over the course of the year, going from around 30MW of deployments in 2021 to between 200-400MW deployed in 2022, depending on whose numbers you choose. LCP Delta provided data to Energy-Storage.news yesterday which said 236MW was deployed last year and 215MW will be deployed this year.