The Volkswagen-Group is starting to operate large battery storage systems for the power grid. Next year will be in Germany The first so-called “power center” that temporarily stores green electricity will go online, announced technical director Thomas Schmall (60) on Friday in Berlin.
The location will be in northern Germany and the groundbreaking ceremony will 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 implementation phase.”
The system will be operated by the VW charging network division Elli. The capacity will initially be 700 megawatt hours and can later be expanded to one gigawatt hour, said Schmall. That roughly corresponds to the capacity of a gas power plant. More “power centers” are to follow. This means the group is opening up a new business area in a growing market.
Buffer for wind and solar power
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. If there is an oversupply, wind turbines and solar systems would still have to be switched off again and again. This can be changed with large battery storage systems.
VW assumes that the need for such battery storage systems in Germany will increase tenfold in the coming years. So far, storage capacity for a total of one gigawatt hour is only available in the Federal Republic. “We’re doubling that with just this one power center,” says Schmall.
Second use for old electric car batteries
In addition, Europe’s largest car manufacturer is opening up another area of application for old electric car batteries whose power is no longer sufficient in the car, but which can still absorb enough electricity for large-scale storage. Schmall admitted that the first system will initially have to use brand-new batteries because there are not yet enough returns from electric cars. “They are only now coming to us.” In the future, the aim is to specifically use discarded electric car batteries in the “power centers” before they are recycled in the third step.
Last year, VW opened a smaller power center in Kassel, with which the Elli division has since then participated in trading on the electricity exchange. Disused battery systems from the now discontinued E-Up small electric car are used there. Also other car manufacturers like BMW and Audi use old batteries as stationary power storage devices, but so far only for their own energy supply or at charging stations.