ABO Wind commissions its first stand-alone battery storage system

Battery storage plays a crucial role in the energy transition. In addition to the planning and construction of wind and solar farms, Germany-based ABO Wind set up a specialist department for this business segment at an early stage. With the commissioning of the first large stand-alone battery project in Northern Ireland, the company has reached an important milestone.

The buyer, Swiss-based infrastructure fund manager SUSI Partners’ dedicated Energy Storage Fund, has commissioned ABO Wind with the technical and commercial operational management of the battery. “We are proud to have connected the storage facility to the grid after a year and a half of work," says Dr Julia Badeda, division manager for hybrid energy systems and storage at ABO Wind. "And we are pleased that we will remain associated with the project in the long term, serving the world’s first institutional fund dedicated to energy storage."

The Kells facility has a capacity of 50 megawatts or 25 megawatt hours and is one of the fastest storage systems in the world, with a response time of less than 150 milliseconds. In addition, the high-capacity battery provides services tendered by the transmission system operators EirGrid and SONI to stabilise the Irish electricity grid and to balance the fluctuating feed-in from wind farms. The battery system was manufactured by Nidec ASI, one of the top three world leaders in the battery energy storage systems market with solutions totaling over 1.6 GWh installed in various countries around the world. “I am very proud of this turnkey project. The fact that SUSI Partners and ABO Wind chose us as a partner is further proof of the excellent results, we have achieved to date in the battery energy storage sector, particularly the exceptional performance of our products which we continue to demonstrate in the field," said Dominique Llonch, CEO of Nidec ASI and Chairman of Nidec Industrial Solutions. 

Especially for countries where renewables already account for more than 25 percent of the electricity mix, energy storage systems play an important role. Due to the ambitious climate targets of many countries, the market is likely to remain dynamic. "We are currently planning many similar projects in several countries," says Badeda. "In Germany, we have already received three construction permits for stand-alone battery projects this year, which we will implement before the end of the year." ABO Wind is also one of the pioneers in hybrid projects that combine renewable energy plants with battery storage.