Largest battery storage in the Czech Republic is being built near Vraňany in the Mělník region

Construction of a facility that will include the largest battery storage facility in the Czech Republic and gas combustion turbines began at the end of March near Vraňany in the Mělník region. The investor is the Czech energy group Decci. The so-called power balance support services resource (SVR) will have a total capacity of 30 megawatts, announced Lucie Vurbsová, on behalf of the Association for Energy Storage AKU-BAT CZ, today.

Thanks to the battery storage energy storage system (BSAE), the hybrid power source will enable the regulatory power required by the transmission system operator to be released immediately. "The limited endurance of the BSAE is compensated by the involvement of combustion turbines with fast start-up, high power dynamics and low emissions. The technical solution is a combination of resources that complement each other synergistically. The hybrid power concept was developed with the aim of strengthening the energy security of the Czech Republic and supporting the decarbonisation of the Czech energy sector," said Darina Merdassi, member of the Board of Directors of E.nest Energy. The company belongs to the Decci group.

"The investment will exceed CZK 1 billion," said Merdassi. According to her, the project is financed from the investor's own resources in combination with a bank. Jan Fousek, executive director of the AKU-BAT association, said that the storage facility will be the largest in the Czech Republic, surpassing even the one being built by ČEZ in Ostrava-Vítkovice, which can hold 9.45 MWh of energy.

Merdassi said that analyses by the Czech Electricity Transmission System (CEPS) show that the current development of the power sector may lead to a dramatic decline in the regulatory capacity to provide SVR. "The hybrid resource we are building is a pioneering solution to ensure sufficient SVR capacity and thus maintain the ability to ensure a power balance between consumption and generation. Our solution is modular, scalable and easily replicable," added Merdassi. Energy Nest will be able to use green hydrogen as fuel in the future.

Siemens is the contractor for the hybrid power plant in Vranje, while the turbines are supplied by the British company Centrax. Czech experts such as the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics or the Czech Technical University, which is developing machine learning-based control algorithms for the project, have also been involved.

The Decci group is dedicated to finding innovative energy solutions and integrating them into everyday life. It focuses on modern energy projects in terms of generation, storage and distribution. It is also a founding member of the Association for Energy Storage AKU-BAT, which brings together the most important actors active in energy storage and is a founding member of the Modern Energy Association.

Source: Hospodářské noviny and CTK