The Volkswagen Group is entering into the operation of large battery storage systems for the power grid.
The first so-called Power Centre, which temporarily stores green electricity, will be connected to the grid in Germany next year, VW's chief technology officer Thomas Schmall announced in Berlin on Friday.
The site will be in the north of Germany and the ground-breaking ceremony is scheduled to take place in the next six to eight weeks. "And we will go online at the beginning of next year," said Schmall. "We will then be in the concrete realization phase."
The plant will be operated by VW's charging network division Elli. The capacity will initially be 700 megawatt hours and can later be expanded to 1 gigawatt hour, said Schmall. This is roughly equivalent to the capacity of a gas-fired power station. Further power centres are to follow.
The Group is tapping into a new business segment in a growing market. The systems are intended to serve as a buffer for wind and solar energy and thus help to stabilize the power grid.
"Our investments in stationary battery storage are therefore a significant contribution to the sustainable transformation of the energy supply," said Schmall.
Wind turbines and solar plants still have to be switched off time and again when there is an oversupply, but This can be changed with large battery storage systems.
VW assumes that the demand for such battery storage systems in Germany will increase tenfold in the coming years. So far, only 1 gigawatt hour of storage has been available in Germany. "We will double that with this one power centre alone," said Schmall.
