As early as 2021, the Fraunhofer Institute ISE's study "Paths to a climate-neutral energy system" has forecast an almost 200-fold increase in the expansion of short-term storage from 2021 to 2030 in order to prepare the nationwide electricity grid for the energy transition.
This assessment of the research is now also acknowledged by the regulatory authorities in the course of the latest scenario framework for the grid development plan published every 2 years. This is prepared in cooperation between the transmission system operators, responsible for the nationwide transport of electricity over long distances, and the Federal Grid Agency, the national regulatory authority for the electricity grid. The grid development plan defines the necessary measures that are required now and in the near future to prepare the power grid for volatile renewable energy producers. The necessary numerical basis for this is provided by the scenario framework.
Large-scale battery storage was already taken into account in the 2021 grid development plan, but with a rather conservative expansion expectation of 3.4 GW by 2035. In the scenario framework for the 2023 grid development plan that has now been published, however, these forecasts were increased 7-fold to 24.2 GW by 2037 and are now similar to the Fraunhofer Institute's figures.
Regulators have now also recognized the need for the widespread expansion of large-scale battery storage, which is essential to effectively compensate for the increased generation volatility caused by the massive increase in the share of renewables.
In the current grid development plan, the assumption as to how large-scale battery storage systems can be used has been adjusted. Instead of limiting the use of storage systems to the provision of balancing energy the current plan also takes active participation in the electricity market into account. With this assumption, the actual use is represented much more realistically, as modern large-scale battery storage systems in particular (see www.kyon-energy.de) focus on a multi-use strategy and not just on the balancing energy market.
The regulatory authority's assumptions have now come closer to those of the scientific community. However, the next step is to answer how the BNetzA intends to turn these forecasts into reality, i.e. how storage systems are to be integrated into the grid.
According to the BNetzA's current regulatory approach, storage systems are considered to be purely market-serving and therefore, from a regulatory perspective, clearly a burden on the grid and not grid-serving, even though they have the technical prerequisites to make a major contribution to grid stability.
If storage systems remain a burden on the grid from a regulatory perspective, the forecasts that the BNetzA itself has now confirmed will never be able to be implemented in reality. The BNetzA must act now to ensure a rapid and large-scale expansion of storage and thus achieve the targets it has set itself:
The requirements for the grid-friendly use of storage systems must be clarified. Then the grid operators will also be certain that large-scale storage expansion will not result in grid expansion but, on the contrary, can avoid senseless grid expansion "down to the last kWh". This would make it possible to connect many gigawatts of storage systems to the grid and would be an important milestone on the way to an energy system with 80% renewables by 2030.
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