Inclusion Use of home and community batteries

The question of what role home and community batteries can play in the energy system is more topical than ever. These batteries are likely to proliferate rapidly in the coming years.

Will it be slower? If so, the possibility of charging and discharging by electric cars (bi-directional charging) does ensure rapid growth of storage capacity at local level.

Local energy storage can help balance the energy system, but can also create problems on the grid.

This calls for good neighbourliness in the use of home and community batteries. Emma Gerritse Stedin discussed this in detail.

Local energy system

However, a positive contribution of these batteries to the local energy system is not a given: without precautions, installing batteries can increase peak and exacerbate grid congestion.

The business case for batteries often requires stacking revenue models.

Batteries become profitable when increasing self-consumption of solar power is combined with trading in national energy markets or even the imbalance markets.

Precisely those national markets create price incentives that do not necessarily help in the local energy system. For instance, when prices are low in winter (when the wind is strong and much power is generated by offshore wind turbines), batteries can create additional electricity demand on top of the demand that is already there. Resulting in a big spike. While this will not happen every day, it could cause the electricity grids in the street to be overloaded as a result.

Good neighbourliness in the energy transition

Good neighbourliness as a principle for the use of home and community batteries helps to prevent this. Good neighbourliness in the energy transition means that neighbours are not inconvenienced by the choices of a few and the neighbourhood contributes together to improving the local energy system whenever possible.

For home and neighbourhood batteries, this means not exacerbating problems on neighbourhood energy grids and prioritising solving local challenges over making as much profit as possible at the national level.

For home batteries and two-way home charging, standardisation is necessary to ensure good neighbourliness. Stedin therefore calls for:

  • Controllability by the grid operator so that batteries can be switched off in emergencies. This will already be the practice in Germany from 1 January 2024.
  • Connection to three phases and application of a regulation that prevents undervoltage, overvoltage and phase imbalance.
  • Registration and inspection requirements so that batteries do not pose a risk to our technicians when they perform work on the grid.

For neighbourhood batteries and bi-directional charging at public charging stations or charging plazas, good-neighbourliness review should take place in concessions, permits or subsidies. Stedin therefore calls on municipalities and other authorities to:

  • Assessment on the principle of good neighbourliness when granting concessions and permits or subsidies for neighbourhood batteries. Stedin is happy to enter into discussions with municipalities to flesh this out.
  • Consult with grid operators on the location of neighbourhood batteries to be placed, so that they are optimally incorporated into the electricity grid.

Speaker:

Emma Gerritse Advisor Energy Systems of the Future at Stedin.

Emma outlined Stedin's vision in this E lunch webinar, how with good neighbourliness, leading the way in the use of home and neighbourhood batteries, can grid congestion start to be prevented or reduced? She also updated us on the latest developments and opportunities.

About the speaker:
ir. Emma (E.C.) Gerritse is an energy system of the future consultant at Stedin, specialising in energy storage. With her background as a physicist and her experience in the renewable energy sector, she looks for new ways to shape the energy system of the future.

Links

Good neighbourliness as guiding principle for home and community batteries Stedin 20-03-2024

Home and community batteries | Stedin

Position paper: Good neighbourliness for use of home and community batteries Stedin

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