Renewable power generation

Renewable power generation combined with Organic SolidFlow batteries

The global renewable energy industry is up against one huge challenge: How to store the massive quantities of intermittent solar and wind power it generates. Combining CMBlu’s Organic SolidFlow batteries with photovoltaic or wind farms strongly decreases intermittency and flattens the renewable power generation curve.

PPAs and renewable power balancing

Whenever regulations require an intraday balancing of production and consumption of green electricity, batteries are able to temporarily decouple the actual power generation process from its grid feed-in. This enables photovoltaic or wind farm operators to adapt their power production to the physical demand profile of their customers. This increases the share of renewable electricity in the customer's total consumption and enables PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) sellers to maximize the value of their product.

PPAs and negative prices

A key issue when negotiating PPAs is how to deal with negative prices on the electricity market. With regard to optimum bankability of the projects, renewable project developers and their investors strive to secure revenues for every producible MWh. PPA buyers, on the other hand, do not want to take off electricity from the PPA, if prices are negative. Batteries can store the electricity in times of negative and withdraw it in times of positive prices. This does not only increase the value of the PPA, but also makes it more independent of the modeling of contentious long-term negative price forecasts.

Grid access

Battery-based feed-in shifting and peak shaving prevents cut-offs in power generation when grid overload occurs. This also circumvents limited grid access capacity and helps reduce costs for overall grid development. And the other way around, it enables more renewable generation capacity to be embedded in existing grid infrastructure.

Tariff optimization

Depending on individual subsidies or feed-in tariffs, higher feed-in flexibility enables photovoltaic or wind farm operators to maximize their power generation revenues.

Combined installations

Hybrid solutions such as offshore wind farms combined with hydrogen electrolyzers represent additional attractive applications for Organic SolidFlow batteries. For instance full-load hours of the electrolysers can be increased by short-term buffering of the volatile electricity generation profile. This results in advantages with regard to the efficiency and sustainability of entire sector-coupling systems.

Additional front-of-meter revenues

What’s more, these attractive behind-the-meter benefits of our Organic SolidFlow batteries for industry are bolstered by lucrative front-of-meter opportunities: Free battery capacity can be temporarily sold to the electricity markets, so energy arbitrage in the day-ahead and real-time or intraday markets, together with profitable opportunities in ancillary services will generate considerable additional revenues. Finally, CMBlu will provide an integrated AI-based software platform to tap into this full value chain from optimized battery operation to full electricity wholesale market access.