As early as 2021, as part of the study “Paths to a Climate-Neutral Energy System,” the Fraunhofer Institute ISE predicted an almost 200-fold increase in the expansion of short-term storage systems from 2021 to 2030 in order to prepare the nationwide power grid for the energy transition.
Regulators are now also committed to this assessment of the research as part of the latest scenario framework for the network development plan published every 2 years. This is prepared in cooperation with the transmission system operators, responsible for the nationwide transport of electricity over long distances, and the Federal Network Agency, the national regulatory authority for the power grid. The grid development plan defines the necessary measures, which are necessary now and in the near future to prepare the power grid for volatile renewable energy producers. The scenario framework provides the necessary figures for this.
Large-scale battery storage has already been included in the 2021 network development plan, but with a fairly conservative expansion expectation of 3.4 GW by 2035. However, in the scenario framework for the 2023 network development plan that has now been published, these forecasts have been increased by 7 times to 24.2 GW by 2037 and are now similar to the Paying Fraunhofer Institute.
As a result, regulators have now also recognized the need for the broad expansion of large battery storage systems, which is essential to effectively compensate for the increased generation volatility caused by the massive increase in the share of renewables.
Why was the forecast raised so much?
In the current network development plan, the assumption of how large battery storage systems can be used has been adjusted. Instead of limiting the use of storage systems to the provision of balancing energy only, the current plan also took into account active participation in the electricity market. With this assumption, actual use is much more realistic, as modern large battery storage systems (see www.kyon-energy.de) in particular focus on a multi-use strategy and not just on the control energy market.
The regulatory authority's assumptions have therefore now converged with scientific assumptions. The next step, however, is to answer how the BNetzA intends to make these forecasts a reality, i.e. how storage should be integrated into the network.
In accordance with the current Federal Network Agency regulations, storage systems are regarded as serving the purely market and therefore, from a regulatory perspective, as clearly network-loading and not serving the grid, although as described in our article “How energy storage systems avoid blackouts,” they meet the technical requirements to make a major contribution to grid stability.
If storage systems remain a burden on networks from a regulatory perspective, the forecasts, which the BNetzA itself has now confirmed, will never be able to be implemented in reality. In order to ensure rapid and large-scale storage expansion and thus achieve the goals it has set itself, the BNetzA must act now:
The requirements for network-friendly use of storage systems must be clarified. Network operators will then also be certain that a large-scale expansion of storage will not result in network expansion but, on the contrary, can avoid nonsensical network expansion “down to the last kWh.” This would enable many gigawatts of storage systems to be connected to the grid and an important milestone on the way to an energy system with 80% renewables in 2030 would be achieved.
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