STEAG GmbH

Essen-based energy company STEAG GmbH sells its Romanian Crucea onshore wind farm (Figure 1) to the Romanian renewable energy producer Hidroelectrica. This has to be seen in context with STEAG’s strategic self-realignment which in reference to the company’s activities on the wind sector sees concentration on project development and providing operational services with the French wind energy market especially in focus. Actually STEAG is running wind farms in France as well as in Germany.

On 23rd December 2020, STEAG and Societatea de Producere a Energiei Electrice în Hidrocentrale Hidroelectrica S.A. (Hidroelectrica) signed an agreement concerning the sale of STEAG’s shares in Romanian subsidiaries Crucea Wind Farm S.A. (Crucea Wind Farm) and STEAG Energie Romania S.R.L. (STEAG Energie Romania) to Hidroelectrica, following a highly competitive process which involved both local and international bidders. The transaction will complete in accordance with conditions stipulated in the agreement.

Hidroelectrica is focused on diversifying its production by adding high-quality renewables capacities to its portfolio, as part of the company`s recently approved development strategy. The company restates its objective of remaining 100 % green throughout the portfolio diversification process.

Developed by STEAG and commissioned in 2014, Crucea Wind Farm is one of the most modern and best-maintained onshore wind farms in Romania with an installed capacity of 108 MW.

By selling the asset at this very moment STEAG has met an opportune time since the transaction correlates with STEAG’s future wind strategy to develop, sell, and then run those renewable assets as service operator. Concerning wind energy most activities of STEAG will in future take place on the French market which is considered to offer opportunities for further growth. (STEAG/Si.)

STEAG GmbH (Figure 1), Essen/Germany, is pushing ahead with refocusing its business and realigning its organization. With change well under way in the energy sector and the politically and socially desired decarbonization in particular of energy generation and industry, this process of transformation is gaining impetus. The energy company has long been operating successfully in growth areas beyond its previous core business, and these are increasingly becoming the focus of its activities.

At the same time, the company founded more than 80 years ago is having to adopt painful measures with regard to its workforce. Since the legislation of Germany’s Coal-Fired Power Generation Termination Act (KVBG) entered into force, it has been clear that over the course of the coming years, STEAG will gradually have to shut down and decommission most of its hard coal-fired power plants in Germany – with the exception of Walsum 10, which only went into operation in 2013.

In total, it is anticipated that STEAG will have to cut around 1,000 jobs at the power plant sites in the Ruhr area and the Saarland, in the directly related activities, on the administration side and in its other operative business in Germany. “STEAG sees itself as having a clear responsibility for the employees concerned. We are striving to make job cuts as fair and as socially responsible as possible,” emphasizes Andreas Reichel, Industrial Relations Director and member of STEAG’s Board of Management. He points out, however, that the current difficult economic situation of the company means that the financial resources available for this purpose will be more limited than in the past.

The aim is for STEAG to realign itself under its own steam. At the end of this transformation, STEAG will be more flexible, more powerful and smaller than it is today. “STEAG’s wide-ranging technical and energy expertise means we have good prospects for playing an important role on the energy markets of tomorrow,” Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of the STEAG Board of Management, stresses. The focus of the new business segments is on smart, end-to-end energy solutions and the renewable energies market. Business activities will be centered on the decarbonization of industry and on developing digital business models.

STEAG’s new structure is to be in place by the start of the 2022 financial year. The corresponding plans have been presented to the company’s Supervisory Board at its meeting on 30th September 2020.

“We are convinced that the realignment will make us more successful and at the same time more attractive to new investors, even if great challenges and efforts lie ahead of us this year and next,” Rumstadt remarks. (STEAG/Si.)

STEAG Fernwärme GmbH, Essen/Germany, looks back on the beginnings of its entrepreneurial activity. What started with the commissioning of the heating plant at Schederhofstrasse in Essen on 20th October 1960, has today developed into a real success story in and for the Ruhr area. Today, STEAG Fernwärme, a subsidiary of the Essen-based energy company STEAG GmbH, is the largest company in the sector in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The first customer of today’s STEAG Fernwärme in October 1960 was the former Thyssen high-rise building, now known as the “Ruhr Tower”. The building, once the tallest structure in the city of Essen at a height of around 80 m, had a connected load of 5 MW. Today, STEAG Fernwärme supplies around 1.6 M MWh of heat to its customers, equivalent to the needs of more than 275,000 households.

“That means that the amount of energy we supply to our customers today is around 250 times greater than when the company was founded,” says Michael Straus, Managing Director of STEAG Fernwärme, once again highlighting the growth during six decades of district heating business in the Ruhr area.

Around six years after its foundation, STEAG Fernwärme began supplying district heating to the city center of Bottrop. That, typically for the coal and steel orientation of the Ruhr area, used part of the heat produced by the power plant at the former Prosper 3 coal mine. “The system developed by STEAG at that time to supply the residents of Bottrop with heating energy is symbolic of STEAG’s efforts to use energy as efficiently as possible at all times. This aspiration has remained part of our corporate DNA to this day,” says Straus.

The expansion of the heating supply to include the city of Gelsenkirchen in 1971 was also closely linked to the industrial policy decisions of the time (Figure 1). “When a joint venture with Ruhrkohle AG was created in 1968 to deal with the challenges of the Ruhr mining crisis which was then at its most severe, the Consolidation coal mine in Gelsenkirchen was transferred from Mannesmann AG to Ruhrkohle,” Straus reports. In the following period, Mannesmann sold its mine-based heating plants. “As happened only a few years earlier in Bottrop, STEAG took over the heating plants and started to establish a district heating supply for Gelsenkirchen.”

Seen in this light, STEAG played an active part in structural change in the Ruhr area from an early stage and was a pioneer of an energy supply system in the region that conserves resources and protects the climate. This approach by the company also became apparent in the next milestone project, which went into operation in the summer of 1978 after a three-year planning and construction period. The Ruhr District Heating Trunk Network, at that time the first interregional district heating network in Germany, and also the first time that STEAG’s district heating was generated according to the particularly efficient and resource-saving principle of combined heat and power generation.

“This project casts a particularly clear light on the two core competencies of STEAG, which have been decisive for the company to this day. A high degree of technical know-how and the associated problem-solving skills and the equally necessary energy industry expertise to ensure that convincing planning also leads to commercial success,” says Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of the Board of Management of STEAG GmbH.

Around 30 years ago – as is the case again today – construction of a power plant in Herne was the center of interest. Then, in the form of the Herne IV power plant unit, a powerful heat extraction system was put into operation at the site for the first time in order to supply the district heating customers in Essen, Bottrop and Gelsenkirchen from Herne. “Today, we are writing a new chapter in STEAG’s corporate history at the Herne site with the construction of a new combined cycle power plant,” says Rumstadt.

The new, highly efficient gas-fired power plant will go into operation by the end of 2022 and replace the coal-fired power plant. STEAG Fernwärme’s carbon footprint, which is already good today, will be noticeably improved once again by the changeover from hard coal to natural gas.

Looking back, the past six decades have been an impressive success story for STEAG Fernwärme, as the company’s energy performance data quoted at the beginning of this article impressively demonstrates. But the company’s commercial success has never enticed the active players to rest on their laurels – on the contrary. “We are constantly developing, planning new projects, pressing ahead with technical innovations and, in tune with our corporate identity, we always keep in mind that the supply of heat is more than just a business: STEAG is an integral part of what is called “public services”, not only but especially in the Ruhr area,” says Straus, outlining how his company sees itself.

In this respect, it was only logical for STEAG, in a partnership with the municipal utility Stadtwerke Essen, to push ahead once again with the expansion of the district heating system in Essen. “The “Eastern Line”, the first of three construction phases of which has now been successfully completed apart from some minor remaining work, is the necessary condition for supply of district heating to 19 further districts of Essen. The first contracts with major customers and end-users have already been concluded. From the end of 2020, the new ALDI North Campus in Essen-Kray will be supplied with district heating. At about the same time, the district heating supply for the new TÜV-Nord office building in Essen-Frillendorf will start. For the city of Essen, this expansion of the district heating supply is a big step forward in terms of sustainability and climate protection,” says Straus, underlining the importance of the project.

In 2021, the Eastern Line project will have been completed. STEAG Fernwärme will then set about developing further new project ideas, pressing ahead with technical innovations and thus not only continuing its own success story, but also remaining a successful player and shaper of structural change in the Ruhr metropolitan region. (STEAG/Si.)

“The Federal Constitutional Court’s decision is bitterly disappointing for STEAG,” Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of the Board of Management of STEAG GmbH (Figure 1), Essen/Germany, remarks. “Since the rejection of the urgent application was made on formal grounds, the question of the constitutionality of the Coal-fired Power Generation Termination Act has not been examined at all,” meaning it was also not possible to have the criticism of the Coal-fired Power Generation Termination Act (KVBG), which had been strongly voiced not least by the German Bundesrat, reviewed before the start of the closure auctions on 1st September 2020.

The Federal Constitutional Court announced on 19th August 2020 that by decision of 18th August 2020 it had dismissed STEAG’s urgent application concerning the KVBG. At the same time, the highest German court declared it inadmissible from the outset for the energy services provider to lodge a constitutional complaint in the same matter at a later time.

“Even though our urgent application has been rejected, this decision does not mean that existing constitutional reservations about the KVBG have been dispelled,” lawyer Jana Michaelis from the law firm Rosin-Büdenbender, which represented STEAG in this case, emphasizes. As a result, the forthcoming auction procedures will take place as envisaged by the KVBG without their legal conformity even having been looked into, let alone established.

The rejection of the urgent application and the determination of inadmissibility of a possible constitutional complaint at a later time is based primarily on the argument that STEAG is a public-private enterprise but with a majority of municipal shareholders. According to established case-law, the Federal Constitutional Court does not allow companies that are more than 50 % publicly owned to appeal on the grounds of the protection of fundamental rights.

This assessment ignores the fact that STEAG is a company that is highly focused towards international markets and has a heterogeneous shareholder structure. Its shareholders include a large number of players with widely differing positions and interests. The fact that the Constitutional Court is nevertheless denying STEAG the capacity to exercise fundamental rights is particularly serious, as the KVBG itself has already considerably encroached upon companies’ rights, against which STEAG now de facto cannot defend itself.

The Federal Constitutional Court’s decision comes at the end of a legislative process that, from the very start, disadvantaged operators of hard coal fired power plants. When the draft bill for the KVBG was presented in January 2020, the companies concerned were only given 24 h in which to submit their comments. In view of the scope and significance of the Act, this was an unreasonably short period of time which severely curtailed the opportunities for the companies concerned to participate.

Furthermore, in contrast to what had been the case with the operators of lignite fired power plants, no direct discussions on the form the coal phase-out should take were at any time held with the operators of hard coal fired power plants. This culminates in the objectively unjustified inequality of treatment between lignite and hard coal, where fixed contractual agreements on the one hand contrast with an open auction procedure with the threat of closure on the other.

The energy services provider has always made it clear that it would not call into question the compromise negotiated by the Commission on Growth, Structural Change and Employment on the end of coal-fired power generation in Germany. “We accept the political and social will to dispense with coal as a source of energy in Germany in the future. What we are criticizing, though, is the inadequate way in which the coal phase-out is being implemented,” Rumstadt points out.

STEAG will examine the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision in detail. (STEAG/Si.)

In mid-June 2020, the German Government presented the National Hydrogen Strategy after a long period of preparation. STEAG GmbH, Essen/Germany, welcomes the blueprint for a successful market ramp-up of a hydrogen sector in Germany which is now available: “The paper contains a number of useful and pioneering approaches. We hope, though, that these ideas will be firmed up in the near future,” says Joachim Rumstadt, Chairman of the Board of Management of STEAG.

In STEAG’s opinion, the German government’s insistence on keeping the entire value chain in view when developing the hydrogen industry is expressly to be welcomed. In concrete terms, the strategy paper states: “Supply, distribution and demand will always be considered in conjunction with each other.”

“This holistic view is of vital importance. After all, we need to bring production and demand for hydrogen together. That is not the case in all the places where production of hydrogen is possible in principle,” says Rumstadt. The solution could be to build the next electrolyzers close to the consumption points, with the aid of political back-up. If this were to succeed, it would be a milestone on the way to successfully establishing the required domestic market for hydrogen. Potential customers are, e. g., steel manufacturers or local public transport companies.

The fundamental requirement for this is close coordination between the federal, state and local authorities in order to actually exploit the recognized potential that hydrogen offers for the creation of a largely emission-free energy landscape of the future. Only then will it be possible to achieve the goal that the federal government has set itself, namely to strengthen regional value creation, as expressly called for in its strategy paper.

“The market ramp-up of the hydrogen sector must take the form of concerted action so that the hopes placed in this energy source can be fulfilled,” says Rumstadt. In this context, the projects already launched before the national hydrogen strategy was published – in the case of STEAG, e. g., the “Fenne HydroHub” living laboratory – must not be forgotten.

“If the German government now holds out the prospect within the framework of its National Hydrogen Strategy of, e. g., the electricity required for hydrogen production by electrolysis plants being exempt from taxes and duties, then such an arrangement must apply to the projects already in preparation,” says Philipp Brammen, who coordinates the Fenne HydroHub project at STEAG.

STEAG has already put the extensive exemption from taxes and duties up for discussion several times in the past with regard to the planned HydroHub. “We consider that our efforts in this respect are justified by this measure now being incorporated in the National Hydrogen Strategy, at least as a matter for review,” says Brammen. This is a decisive lever in promoting the marketability of technical innovations and helping ideas to be implemented, which the federal government is expressly calling for in the form of technology demonstrations. In this context, STEAG welcomes the latest announcements by the EU. That body is expressly striving for a Europe-wide harmonization of taxation on hydrogen from electrolysis plants in order to establish a European hydrogen economy.

Another important point is the question of the power source for the hydrogen. In the long term, the German government is aiming above all at the production of green hydrogen, i. e. hydrogen produced entirely from renewable energy sources. “For the time being, however, the main thing must be the successful establishment of a hydrogen industry. This requires electrolyzers on an industrial scale and industrial customers. Hydrogen produced from natural gas or as a by-product from industrial processes should not be excluded per se,” says Rumstadt. “That means only one thing: Hydrogen is going to be more expensive.”

The EU, which in its own hydrogen strategy for the market ramp-up phase is much more open to different technologies, sees things similarly. After all, there is not only a need for additional power generation capacities from renewables, but also for the relevant infrastructure and power storage facilities if the hydrogen industry, which the German government envisages with a generation capacity of 10 GW, is to be supplied nationwide with green electricity in the future.

Overall, STEAG considers the National Hydrogen Strategy to be an important first step (Figure 1). If the ideas outlined in it can be implemented promptly, this can provide a strong impetus for the energy transition and the corona-induced weakening of the German economy. “We are counting on the federal government to quickly ensure that the outstanding issues are resolved and conditions are such that the energy industry can tackle this important future topic,” says Rumstadt. (STEAG/Si.)

STEAG New Energies GmbH, Saarbrücken/Germany, a subsidiary of Essen-based energy company STEAG GmbH, has established a joint venture together with Karl Uhl GmbH, Bochum/Germany, a leading business in the field of industrial compressed air technology.

The aim of the new STEAG UHL Druckluft-Versorgung GmbH is to expand the compressed air contracting business in Germany by combining the strengths of the two partners. STEAG holds 70 % of the shares in the joint venture, and Karl Uhl GmbH the remaining 30 % (Figure 1).

The transaction was carried out in the mutual conviction that by combining the entrepreneurial strengths of the two enterprises they will be able to act even more effectively in the future. “STEAG New Energies already offers its customers precisely tailored energy and compressed air solutions today. By investing in the joint venture, we are further strengthening our technical expertise in this area,” says Thomas Billotet, spokesman for the management of STEAG New Energies.

Karl Uhl GmbH looks back on a 90-year tradition as a highly specialized family business. “The product range extends from compressed air generation, conditioning and distribution through complete electrical, measuring and control technology to the ventilation of compressed air systems and heat recovery,” says Managing Director Peter Uhl. Uhl is contributing this expertise and its after-sales service, which is particularly experienced in issues of plant monitoring and maintenance, to the new company.

The strengths of the two future partners include the development and implementation of individual solutions tailored exactly to the needs of the respective customer in terms of system design and energy efficiency. “With the new company, STEAG’s range of services will again be significantly expanded so that in future we will be able to offer customers the entire range of technical solutions for power generation and the efficient operation of energy-intensive plants from a single source,” says Rüdiger Sass, who will take on the management of the new company together with Peter Uhl.

Both partners are convinced of the strategic importance of the cooperation because, thanks to the bundling of competencies, the new company will be able to meet the growing demand for integrated energy concepts, especially for industrial customers or for municipal and rural utilities, even better and more individually than before. (STEAG/Si.)

The supervisory board of STEAG GmbH, -Essen/Germany, has filled three vacancies on the company’s management board for the coming years. On 1st May 2020, Michael Baumgärtner, who left his role of CFO on the management board on 30th April 2020, was replaced by Heiko Sanders. The businessman and tax consultant, who holds a doctorate, has many years of experience in the energy sector. Up until September 2015, he was CFO of the energy service provider EWE AG in Oldenburg (Lower Saxony). From April 2016, he managed two of his own companies: Dr. Sanders Organisationsberatung, which focused on the areas of strategic development, mergers and acquisitions, and Dr. Sanders Investments. The appointment of Wolfgang Cieslik, Managing Director for Markets and Production, will end on 30th September 2020. His successor, Ralf Schiele, will take up his position on 1st October 2020. The PhD mechanical engineer and current chairman of the board at STEAG Energy Services GmbH (SES), has held various management positions within the STEAG Group since July 1999. SES is one of the world’s leading service providers for energy production facilities. Alfred Geißler, Director of Human Resources and Director of Labour Relations, will be succeeded by Andreas Reichel on 1st August 2020. The doctor of law is a member of the board of executives at E.DIS AG in the Brandenburg town of Fürstenwalde, is responsible for the Human Resources department, and is Director of Labour Relations. He simultaneously holds the role of Managing Director of Labour Relations at E.ON Deutschland. Since 1995, Andreas Reichel has held a leading role in various group companies in the energy sector.

Fenne HydroHub is set to become a living laboratory for the energy transition. The project outline, which was developed by STEAG GmbH, Essen/Germany, jointly with project partners Siemens AG, the Institute for Future Energy and Material Flow Systems (IZES gGmbH) and the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) and entered in the competition held by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), was selected from amongst 90 entries and judged to be eligible for support. On 19th July 2019 in Berlin, Peter Altmaier (CDU), Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, thereby highlighted that Fenne HydroHub is an important building block for a successful energy transition in Germany in the future.

During a press conference given by Altmaier, a total of 20 projects were invited to submit official applications for funding. “This is a great success for the project community and underlines our strategy: STEAG is making pertinent contributions to the energy transition at power plants located in Saarland and in North Rhine-Westphalia,” says Wolfgang Cieslik, Member of the Board of STEAG with responsibility for the Market and Technology segment. The Federal Ministry will provide the selected projects with a total of 100 M € of support until 2025. This is planned to start from the coming year.

The project partners entered the BMWi “Living Labs for the Energy Transition” competition with their “Fenne HydroHub” project outline. The German government is aiming to accelerate the expansion of hydrogen technologies and the establishment of integrated energy solutions, and make them ready for the market. “With this innovative hydrogen infrastructure project, we wish to show a route towards the necessary further development of the energy transition, as well as to develop recommendations for the regulatory framework conditions for the economic construction and operation of this type of CO₂-free system,” says Prof. Thomas Thiemann, Director of the Energy Transition Technologies Team at project partner Siemens Gas&Power.

With the phase-out of nuclear power production in 2022 and the planned end of coal-fired power generation in 2038, one thing is certain: Wind and solar energy will be the main pillars of electricity supply in Germany in the future. However, both renewable energy sources are subject to weather-related fluctuations. As an energy medium, hydrogen can balance out these fluctuations. At the STEAG power station in Völklingen-Fenne (Figure 1), this is to take place at an energy hub where the electricity grid, the district heating grid and a gas pipeline run together. “The term “integrated energy solutions”, which up until now has been seen as the theoretical key to making the energy transition successful, is a reality at our plant,” says Cieslik.

And this is how the project outline looks: In periods of excess supply of wind and solar energy at the STEAG power station, the project partners generate hydrogen using an electrolyser. This energy source can then be used in various ways thanks to the integration of electricity and gas grids, industry and transport. The hydrogen is supplied to nearby steelworks, e. g., which require it for industrial processes. It is fed into the regional gas network and also supplies public hydrogen filling stations for fuel cell vehicles in Saarland. The hydrogen can also be turned into electricity later. The heat which is generated during the production of the hydrogen is extracted from STEAG into the Saar District Heat grid.

The electricity-based production of hydrogen (electrolysis) is intended to be conducted on an industrial scale using renewable energies. Electricity from wind and solar power is used to split water into oxygen and “green hydrogen” by electrolysis. The hydrogen can then be used as a substitute for fossil fuels, making energy production CO₂-free. For energy-intensive industries such as steel and chemicals, the use of hydrogen can be a decisive step towards better environmental compatibility and climate neutrality. With the “Fenne -HydroHub”, the four partners in the project are creating a prototype that can also be implemented at other locations across Germany. In addition to reducing CO₂ emissions, this will also create new jobs. They estimate an investment volume in the mid two-digit million range.

The four partners are breaking new ground in Völklingen-Fenne, since the interaction of various components and systems is being tested on an industrial scale for the first time. A new electrolyser, a large hydrogen storage tank and a new high-temperature heat pump come together with an existing large-scale battery system, a mine gas engine cogeneration plant and an electrode boiler at this energy hub. This means that all the necessary connections to electricity, heat and gas networks are available and usable. In addition, STEAG is considering the construction of a combined cycle power plant at the Fenne site, in which hydrogen can be converted back to electricity on a large scale in a gas turbine. (STEAG/Si.)

The energy company STEAG GmbH, Essen/Germany, is developing a custom, sustainable energy concept for the coking plant in Bottrop together with steel producer ArcelorMittal Bremen GmbH. A modern joint-venture power station, which will be fundamental to the production of electricity, heat and steam, is to be established in the area of the RAG central workshop at the former Prosper-Haniel mine. The highly efficient plant is designed to use the gases which occur during production at the Prosper coking plant in an environmentally friendly manner. The commissioning of the joint-venture power station is planned for mid-2023.

The modern plant will operate on the combined heat and power principle and produce electricity, heat and steam. This triad results in a high overall efficiency of the fuel, and is therefore particularly environmentally friendly. The electricity generated with a capacity of 110 MW will be fed into public power grid and covers the annual electricity consumption of more than 200,000 households. The district heating gained at the same time, with a capacity of up to 60 MW, will be discharged to the district heating distribution network in Bottrop and can supply some 3,000 households with heating energy and hot water. Moreover, process steam, which is required in the coking process, will be extracted at the power station. The modern plant will therefore replace the old steam generators at the site. With these components, the planned power station will make an invaluable contribution to the energy transition in Germany.

Owing to the coke oven gas which is constantly being generated, the planned joint-venture power station is being designed as a “base load power plant”. As regards urban development, the new building will blend into the existing industrial setting and will be completely visible only from the elevated ski dome of Alpincenter Bottrop through an existing rampart with trees (Figure 1). The approval for the power station was requested in accordance with the applicable provisions for power plants under the Federal Immission Control Act. As part of the immission control approval procedure by the District Government of Münster, public participation is required. An environmental impact assessment will also be carried out.

For the further project development, STEAG has founded the project company “Gemeinschaftskraftwerk Bottrop GmbH” with registered office in Bottrop. By the end of 2019, ArcelorMittal Bremen will have 50 % shares in the project company. The necessary antitrust investigation is already under way with the appropriate authorities. (STEAG/Si.)

The German government has set itself the goal of rapidly expanding its renewable energies as part of the energy transition. Sun and wind, however, are subject to fluctuations in relation to the weather, and are not geared towards demand and market requirements. To offset these fluctuations and guarantee that the power supply can meet demands, high-performance energy-storage systems will be needed in the future. Pioneers of battery storage technology are entering the “Innovative Solid Battery” project outline in the “Living Labs for the Energy Transition” ideas competition staged by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and want to replace conventional lithium-ion batteries with new technology.

High Performance Battery Technology GmbH, headquartered in Bonn, the Essen-based company STEAG GmbH, the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and five further partners from the fields of science and industry have joined forces and submitted a corresponding project outline to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs. The federal government wants the “Living Labs for the Energy Transition” competition to promote energy storage in the electricity sector. The storage is to be tested in a real-world environment and enable integration of renewable energy into the energy system.

As an operator of six large-scale battery systems, STEAG is already leading the way. The energy company has been developing vital expertise since 2016 as one of Europe’s largest storage operators. STEAG’s storage batteries are already being used to offset frequency fluctuations in the grid, caused by the increased supply of volatile renewable energies. Within seconds, the large-scale storage batteries can extract excess energy from the grid, or feed the required energy into it.

The objective of the “Innovative Solid Battery” project is to develop and test a new battery technology to replace the conventional lithium-ion battery. “The high-tech batteries boast an extremely impressive and unique combination of performance data,” says Günther Hambitzer, CEO and chair of the board of High Performance Battery Holding AG, based in Switzerland. They are non-flammable, deep-discharge-proof, long-lasting, and there is no raw material shortage. They also have an almost constant capacity with almost constant internal resistance, considerably better for the environment than conventional lithium-ion batteries (50 % less CO₂ equivalent over their life cycle).

The project findings will be used in a wide range of applications:

• network stability and flexibility options;
• stationary network buffering for electromobility as an infrastructure to support charging stations;
• home storage;
• applications for an uninterruptible power supply; and
• power tools and consumer electronics.

“The battery size can range from container storage with a capacity of several megawatt hours down to small batteries of fractions of a kilowatt hour,” concludes Hambitzer. (STEAG/Si.)