Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has revealed the progress of the company’s electric thermal energy storage (ETES) facility in Hamburg-Altenwerder.
Siemens Gamesa said the facility can store up to 30 MWh of energy and boasts maximum scalability at a low investment cost. The pilot facility is currently in the final construction phase, and the company has completed the storage facility’s buildings and main components.
The storage facility, which will able to hold the daily energy requirements of 1,500 German households, will be commissioned in 2019.
Hamburg Energie will sell the stored power on the energy markets. Hamburg’s municipal energy supplier developed an IT platform connecting the storage unit. The Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy is promoting storage development as part of the Future Energy Solutions project.
Siemens Gamesa has developed a storage facility that reduces the construction and operating costs of larger storage capacities to a fraction of the usual level for battery storage. In commercial use, the technology can store energy at a cost of well below ten euro cents per kilowatt hour.
“A very interesting option of our technology is to convert decommissioned thermal power plants into high-performance storage facilities for renewable energies at a low cost,” Hasan Ozdem, head of Technology Management and Projects at Siemens Gamesa, said.