The world’s first floating wind farm has been upgraded with a 1MW battery storage system dubbed “Batwind”.
The batteries will be used to explore how best to maximise the value of the power generated by the 30MW Hywind offshore wind farm in Scotland.
Located 25 kilometres off the coast of Aberdeenshire, Hywind was officially opened by the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, in October last year.
The wind farm consists of five 6MW turbines and is operated by the Norwegian company Equinor (formerly Statoil). Equinor holds a 75 per cent stake, whilst Abu Dhabi-based Masdar owns the remaining 25 per cent.
Two containerised battery units, with a combined storage capacity of 1.3MWh, have now been installed at the onshore substation for the wind farm in Peterhead.
Hywind development manager Sebastian Bringsvaerd, said: “The value in storage is not necessarily in the amount of energy you can store, but how you optimise, control and offer smarter energy solutions.
“By developing Batwind we get real time data, commercial experience and technical verification.”
The batteries were supplied by Younicos, which was acquired by Aggreko in July 2017.
Younicos managing director Karim Wazni, said: “By adding energy storage capabilities to another world first – the world’s first floating wind farm – we hope to demonstrate the essential role that storage plays as we continue pushing the frontier in producing sustainable energy.
“Specifically, we’ve equipped Batwind with our intelligent YQ software, which ensures that the battery ’learns’ the optimal storage conditions. Our software tells the battery when to store electricity and for how long, and when and how much to inject back onto the grid.”