Austria-based utility Verbund is targeting 1GW of battery storage by 2030, it revealed in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a recent project in Bavaria, Germany.
This week saw it unveil two operational battery storage projects in Bavaria that Energy-Storage.news recently revealed had gone online just before the turn of the year, allowing them to qualify for a revenue stream no longer available for newly commissioned projects.
Verbund CEO Michael Strugl, Deputy Minister President of Bavaria Hubert Aiwanger, and Å Energi CEO Steffen Syvertsen, pictured above, attended the ceremony for the projects in Diespeck and Iphofen. Å Energi is the Norway-based parent company of German developer and system integrator Eco Stor.
“Without storage, there would be no successful energy transition. A renewable future can only succeed if we succeed in successfully integrating fluctuating forms of generation into strong and stable grids: every kilowatt hour that can be generated must also be allowed to be generated without endangering grid stability. Every kilowatt hour generated must also be available when it is actually needed,” said Michael Strugl, CEO of Verbund.
“The VERBUND battery storage chain in Northern Bavaria makes a valuable contribution to this. We are fully focused on the energy future: VERBUND plans to install a total of 1GW of battery storage capacity by the end of 2030.”
Strugl said the 1GW target was all for Germany whilst giving a podium speech as part of the ceremony, a source observing the event told Energy-Storage.news. The firm’s battery storage projects have mainly been deployed there to-date, including a 10MW unit in Eisenach, Thuringia, brought online in May last year.
The company is a state-owned utility and grid operator covering 40% of electricity demand in Austria and also operating the entirety of its high-transmission network. Its trading business is active in Germany and is the vehicle through which it owns and optimises its battery storage projects there.
Almost 400MW of utility-scale battery storage was installed in Germany last year bringing the total to well over 700MW installed. A lot of it just before the turn of the year to qualify for a grid service which is often roughly translated as ‘peak shaving’, explained here.
Germany is still a long way off the the pace needed to achieve the 84GWh of new battery storage that the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems estimates it will need to achieve 80% renewable energy by 2030, however.
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