Mega battery farm stores power from 40,000 solar panels

Royal Dekker's new battery park in Vianen consists of twelve megabatteries. These store the energy from more than 40,000 solar panels, which are located on various premises of the timber company. This energy can be used when the sun is not shining or traded on the imbalance market.

The timber company started the project about seven years ago. "Our ambition is to be able to meet our own energy needs in a smart way and to take responsibility. To realize this on a large scale, we have found cooperation with a number of innovative project partners," says Robbert Jan Dekker, CEO of Royal Dekker.

Investment and ability

The mega-battery park consists of twelve batteries with a total capacity of six MW and 13.2 MWh of capacity. This means that when the batteries are on at full power, they can charge from 0 to 100% and vice versa within two hours and fifteen minutes. In this way, the company not only takes full advantage of its own self-generated power, but also provides around 8,000 households with electricity. Furthermore, it helps the regional grid operator to avoid grid congestion, and helps the company on a national level to maintain balance in the power markets (EPEX and Imbalance).

Storage and discharge of energy

Depending on the situation, the batteries will charge when there is a power surplus, such as when the grid operator requests that a local surplus be removed. The batteries will discharge when there is a shortage of power. This happens during bad weather or when the grid operator asks to eliminate the local shortage. Furthermore, they respond daily to the day's needs. By storing power when there is too much energy, think sun and wind or supplying the grid with power when there are shortages, for example in the evening. For optimal pricing, Royal Dekker uses artificial intelligence. These algorithms take into account the weather, the energy market and the stock market prices that change every 15 minutes.