Statoil Awards Battery Contract in Batwind Project

Berlin, Germany and Oslo, Norway - Hywind Scotland, the world’s first floating wind farm, will be equipped with a battery to store power from the wind farm next year. According to Statoil, who is one of the operators of the wind farm, the purpose is to "teach" the battery when to hold back and store electricity, and when send power to the grid, thus increasing value of the power.

Statoil now has awarded a contract to Younicos to deliver a 1MW battery system that will be connected to Hywind Scotland. The storage solution project, named Batwind, shall be operational from Q2 2018. This is the first battery storage system connected to a floating wind farm.

"As part of Statoil‘s strategy of gradually supplementing our oil and gas portfolio with profitable renewable energy, getting to understand energy storage is important. We believe battery storage will be key to future power systems, and with more renewables coming on it will be crucial to handle storage to ensure stability and reliability in the energy supply", says head of Hywind Development in Statoil, Sebastian Bringsværd.

The two Y.Cubes, 10-foot modular battery containers, will be placed at the Hywind Scotland onshore substation in Peterhead, Scotland. Whereas a standard battery will charge and re-charge, the purpose of the Batwind storage solution project – where the 1MW battery from Younicos is one of several elements – is to understand how a battery can help increase the value of the produced electricity and how a battery best can work together with the wind farm and the grid.

Hywind Scotland is operated by Statoil on behalf of partner Masdar, where Statoil holds an ownership share of 75% and Masdar 25%. As Statoil points out, based on the learnings and testing of the 1MW/1,3 MWh battery storage system connected to Hywind Scotland, Statoil and Masdar will assess next steps in further developing the solution. Batwind is a partnership between Statoil and Masdar.

Source: IWR Online, 01 Dec 2017