Distributed energy initiatives have been developing rapidly in the Ochotnica Dolna municipality for several years. It is there that over 700 prosumer photovoltaic installations with an average power of 2 kW each are installed. The municipality’s development is geared towards increasing energy efficiency and conscious electricity management. That is why, on the initiative of its pioneering mayor, an energy storage facility from ZPUE, the Polish leader in the production of these devices, was placed there.
Energy storage facilities are undoubtedly the future of the energy industry. They secure the supply of energy with the right parameters, which is particularly important in the current new situation on the energy market. Ochotnica Dolna is a municipality in the Małopolska region whose local government has opted for energy storage. A pilot project is being implemented there together with Tauron Dystrybucja and the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. A few months ago, it was joined by ZPUE.
This is a medium-power, 100 kW storage with a capacity of 187 kWh. The energy storage is not a device that only takes in and gives out energy. It also has a number of additional useful regulation functions. It can maintain the voltage of preset values, it can regulate the frequency in the grid or control reactive power. Above all, these functionalities are important for distribution system operators, who should supply us with energy with the right parameters,’ Krzysztof Wybrański, Director of New Technology Development at ZPUE, explained to journalists on the day the device was launched in Ochotnica Dolna.
Energy cluster needs energy storage
Ochotnica Dolna has one of the largest concentrations of prosumer photovoltaic installations in Poland. However, when more than 700 houses started producing electricity, the grid was momentarily overloaded. Voltage skyrocketed and the protections shut down the inverters and residents could not save on electricity as the system stopped working.
An ambitious and enterprising mayor – Tadeusz Królczyk – who wanted to ensure energy self-sufficiency and stable utilities for his residents, decided to create an energy cluster to generate energy, distribute it and balance the demand for it. It is currently the smallest energy cluster in Poland. To realise this, energy storage facilities are needed to support local energy security.
During the inauguration of the connection of ZPUE’s large-scale energy storage facility to the low-voltage grid belonging to Tauron Dystrybucja, the mayor Tadeusz Królczyk emphasised that this solution goes beyond the local dimension.
The installation of the ZPUE storage facility in the Ochotnica Dolna municipality is not only important for the inhabitants of our village. The whole of Poland is looking for good solutions to deal with the spikes in the grid generated by photovoltaic installations. We know that this solution works, so the next step is to install more of these devices in the municipality. So that residents can feed electricity back into the grid without any disruption. This is insanely important for our existing cluster in the municipality. After the tests, we are moving on to the advanced project phase of getting as many ZPUE energy storages as possible in Ochotnica and all over Poland.
A renewable energy-friendly municipality
In the Ochotnica Dolna municipality, the energy transition started with the construction of PV installations on municipal facilities, including the sewage treatment plant and the School and Kindergarten Complex.
As a result, active energy policies and the entrepreneurial spirit of the residents themselves have resulted in more than a third of the buildings across the municipality having single-phase photovoltaic micro-installations, which were built as part of a project implemented by the municipality in 2016. This has caused asymmetries and voltage spikes to appear in the power grid, resulting in prosumer installations being switched off. And this in turn reduces their cost-effectiveness for users. Mayor Królczyk began looking for a solution to this problem. And so an energy storage facility from ZPUE came to Ochotnica Dolna. Its main task is to stabilise the voltage in the distribution network and enable prosumer photovoltaic installations connected to the network to function reliably. The storage facility thus ensures the supply of energy with the right parameters, helps optimise costs, facilitates research to support the design of energy storage facilities and assists in determining the location of their subsequent installation.
There will be new projects and further cooperation
Last year, the Ochotnica municipality designed and received funding for the installation of photovoltaic installations on municipal buildings with a capacity of almost 300 kW and for the modernisation of street lighting. The Ochotnica Dolna municipality, in cooperation with the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, is very intensively creating a new advanced energy cluster. The role of the Krakow university will be to conduct research into the functioning of the energy storage facility and its impact on the stability of the electricity system. This will improve efficiency and increase energy security. The research conducted at the university is headed by Prof. Zbigniew Hanzelka, D.Sc.
Although the installation is a pilot that will show the impact of the storage on stabilising the operation of the electricity grid, five months after its commissioning, the mayor Tadeusz Królczyk already speaks very positively about it:
I am delighted with the magazine itself and the collaboration with ZPUE. Professionalism in every respect. The warehouse fulfils its function, which is confirmed by relevant reports and analyses. We are already talking about new projects and further cooperation. We want to use the warehouse in a new location and with a new function. The residents of the municipality are also very pleased with the energy storage facility from ZPUE, as it solves their problems with surplus electricity and voltage spikes. They are also happy that such modern solutions have come to Ochotnica, which has a significant impact on building our image as a progressive and innovative municipality,’ emphasises the mayor of Ochotnica Dolna.