LG Chem will be installing battery systems in Germany. The STEAG power plants in Rhineland-Palatinate and North-Rhine Westphalia will be installed with six 15 megawatt-hour lithium-ion battery systems to maintain frequency and balance the grid.
Korean chemical company LG Chem Ltd. will be helping Germany in installing six lithium-ion batteries to its STEAG power plants in North-Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate areas. Each of the battery's capacity has 15 megawatt-hour, expected around late 2016 or early 2017. When the batteries are successfully installed, the Großbatterie-Systeme can store up to 140 megawatt-hour of electric energy enough to power up 10,000 households.
A large-scale lithium-ion battery has a maximum capacity of 90 megawatts. This integration comes with EMS and PCS solutions from Nidec. The purpose for the batteries is to store huge energy amounts to balance Germany's power grids and maintain a 50 hertz of constant frequency. The project is roughly estimated at €100 million.
STEAG GmbH Chairman of the Board of Management, Joachim Rumstadt, said that creating energy storage facilities are essential for energy transition implementations in Germany. Therefore, the company decided to control the power market without the use of subsidies by investing and deploying large-scale batteries.
Every STEAG power plant will have a large-scale lithium-ion battery system. The power source will be coming from burning coal. Germany's energy consumption is the largest among the European nations and a lot of traditional power companies are already heavily investing in energy storage forms. Germany alone has an annual power consumption above 550 terawatt-hours.
More than 200 projects have already been implemented around the globe with regards to energy storage systems. This type of technology has been picking up the pace as LG announced that is was thinking of opening a battery plant in the European region. Although the plant intends to make batteries for electric cars only, not for large-scale usage.
