MIGROS gets the largest salt battery storage facility in Switzerland

It’s great to see the newest installation of the #SoNick batteries in Switzerland by Innovenergy.

This installation is a 540 kWh salt battery storage system and now stands in the basement of MIGROS Schlieren/ZH. The molten salt batteries are 620V SoNick batteries supplied by FZSoNick and inverters by Indrivetec.

The SoNick batteries are charged with a large 806 KW solar PV system.

The purpose of the large-scale project is to save energy costs by optimising self-consumption. The other benefit is to maximise peak shaving which ensures the supermarket doesn’t have a lot of intermittent high energy draws which would increase energy bills substantially.

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What extended power outage teaches us about backup battery power

Recently, after the severe weather event that hit Victoria on 9th June the ABC wrote an article comparing how a few different battery installations performed.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-03/battery-power-dandenong-ranges-tesla-agm-grid/100264988

This article pointed out the importance of when purchasing an energy storage battery that it is fit for the purpose that you want it to provide.

Just like many people don’t initially realise that solar arrays don’t operate if the power is disconnected, battery storage systems don’t always work either.

This is fine if you just want a battery energy storage system to provide some load sharing but if you want power when the grid is disconnected the battery has to be capable of being used in an off-grid situation and it has to be wired to allow for this. This usually means the battery inverter is wired in before your solar inverter so that the complete battery and solar PV energy system can operate independently from the grid.

The type and size of your battery system is also important and how much of a battery systems capacity is actually useable. With lead acid and AGM batteries, generally only 30 – 50% of the batteries capacity is useable which means you will need a larger system capacity overall. Also as lead acid and AGM batteries tend to degrade over time and with use this needs to be taken into account when sizing your energy storage system.

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Not all batteries are equal

With many households already having solar PV installations many people are now looking at energy storage systems to upgrade their home energy supply.

One of the most common questions is what battery is best for my needs. There is a lack of knowledge and a great amount of misinformation in the battery storage industry. It is critical to do your own homework and not just believe what salesman / installers are telling you as they are often restrained in their knowledge by the battery brand they are trying to sell.

In an effort to compare battery technologies a company called ITP renewables, in Canberra, set up a battery test site, https://batterytestcentre.com.au/ to conduct longitudinal performance testing of conventional and emerging battery technologies. This is an Arena funded testing facility set up to independently test and compare different battery technologies under Australian conditions for both performance and longevity for a 3 year period. This testing centre was first set up with Phase 1 in 2016 then phase 2 started in 2017. Originally it was for lithium-ion batteries only but now includes other technologies.

The SoNick battery is included in round 3 which started in 2019 and to date showing excellent results. 10 Previous 6 monthly reports are available from the test centre and can be download.at http://batterytestcentre.com.au/reports/

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