Giant battery to Power New District in Copenhagen

16 August 2016

DONG Energy’s electricity distribution company Radius has made an agreement with ABB for a large-scale Li-ion battery in the upcoming Nordhavn city district. The battery, which corresponds to 20 normal EV’s, will be installed in a parking lot in Nordhavn in January 2017. Fully charged, it can power 60 households for 24 hours.

The plans for changing the old port area in Nordhavn into an attractive neighbourhood with no less than 40,000 residents is on the drawing board and will be completed 30-50 years from now. The local plan for the first part of Nordhavn has been approved by the authorities and a Nordhavn branch of the new Metro City Line is being designed now. The project will become one of the largest urban development projects in recent time from both a construction and a sustainability perspective. Sustainability will be integral to all aspects of the process and will set new standards for working with sustainability – both in Denmark and on a global scale.

One of the ambitions is to create a city district in Copenhagen that is energy sustainable. For instance, many of the buildings will produce electricity by solar cells and other forms of renewable energy. It also includes infrastructure and the interplay between electricity, heating/cooling and water/wastewater.

New Requirements for the Electricity Grid
The green ambitions and changed energy consumption sets special requirements for the electricity grid. Storage of energy in batteries will most likely play a much larger role than today. Radius is preparing for this together with partners in the EnergyLab Nordhavn in order to test how large-scale batteries can be integrated into the electricity grid. Power from the battery can be utilised when there is a need to reduce the load on the grid, and therefore operate it more cost efficiently:

“In the coming years energy production will fluctuate much more than we are used to today, and consumption patterns will change in light of the green transition. As an electricity distribution company, we have a unique opportunity to prepare for the future. By putting the battery in operation through the Nordhavn demonstration project we are able to learn more about how to design the electricity grid, so it matches the context that will become reality in a few years. We can also test how new technical and market-related solutions interact with the grid. We believe that batteries will become of the technologies, that we have to consider much more the coming years, says Anders Vikkelsø, Vice President at Radius.

EnergyLab Nordhavn is the first collaboration of this magnitude to be established between relevant stakeholders from authorities, utility companies, industry and knowledge institutions with the aim of developing energy solutions. The initiator of the project is DTU in collaboration with a consortium comprising the City of Copenhagen, HOFOR, DONG Energy, CPH City & Port Development, ABB, Balslev, CleanCharge, METRO THERM, Glen Dimplex and the PowerLab facilities.

- Download PDF: Nordhavnen - from idea to project

The aim of EnergyLab Nordhavn is to develop new innovative business models, new energy technologies and intelligent operating solutions, such as integrated and flexible energy markets, coordinated operation of electricity and heating systems, energy storage, energy-efficient buildings—subject to immediate optimisation in relation to energy markets—and technologies offering flexible switching between energy sources. The aim is for tomorrow's sustainable, densely populated energy-efficient cities all over the world to benefit from the solutions.

“ABB is very pleased to enter into agreement with Radius concerning this smart city Li-ion battery project. The project supports ABB’s strategy environmentally friendly and innovative solutions for the energy sector. The Li-ion battery solution is unique both in terms of its central location in the urban environment but also in terms of its technical design as an integrated part of a standard 10 kV electricity station in a city zone. At ABB we are convinced that the future will hold many more grid connection batteries in connection with, for instance, solar cells, wind turbines, electric cars and busses”, says Jonas M. Kjær, Sales Manager at ABB.

Facts about the battery
Effect = 630 kW
Energy = 460 kWh
Technology = Li-ion
Commissioning = January 2017

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Source: EnergyLab Nordhavn (In Danish)