Sonnen tackles grid congestion in Germany with distributed storage systems

April 27, 2020 | Case Study

Wind power installations keep growing in Germany, and the northern regions of the country are better-suited to harness the power of the wind to generate renewable electricity. However, while installations in these regions continue, there are periods of time when the supply is too high and the renewable generation must be curtailed to avoid grid congestion. In 2018, Germany curtailed 5.4 TWh of renewable electricity, and in Q1 of 2019 alone, wind curtailment hit a record of 3.2 TWh. In addition, grid congestion management is a service that costs energy consumers more than €1.4 billion. In order to tackle renewable electricity curtailment and tackle grid congestion, Sonnen collaborated with an undisclosed distribution network operator (DNO) in northeast Germany to store excess renewable electricity from wind farms in a virtual power plant (VPP) made out of distributed battery systems installed in the region.