Not only can energy storage be used to “mimic” the roles of existing assets in the electricity network, a gigawatt-scale initiative in Germany shows how ways of thinking about energy storage could save transmission and networks “billions of dollars”, the COO of Fluence has said.

A portfolio of 1,300MW of energy storage was recommended for Germany’s transmission networks in a grid development plan for enhancing network stability, produced by the utilities that own those networks. In a recent white paper, Fluence looks at what it calls “Energy storage as virtual transmission,” taking the example of the German grid operators’ plan, called “Grid-Booster”, as a means to put this ‘virtual transmission’ concept into action at gigawatt-scale. The plan is currently seeking regulatory and policy approval.

“Though we’ve worked on a variety of things, when we first started on storage we were most focused on generation alternative jobs and improvement of the existing generation fleet,” John Zahurancik, COO at technology provider Fluence - itself part-owned by Germany-headquartered Siemens - said in an interview at Solar Power International in Utah a few weeks back.

“I think what we’ve seen most recently now is more and more wires alternatives becoming something where storage actually suits the bill…I think the really neat thing to see right now is that we have proven energy storage I think is viable and able to meet the kind of rigorous performance standards of the electric utility sector needs that people are looking at more and more cases on the transmission and distribution wires system to bring storage in,” Zahurancik said.

In the Grid-Booster example, grid stability can be aided and network costs potentially lowered by adding that huge portfolio of energy storage. Instead of building a separate, third transmission line for backup transmission capacity (the N-1 grid reliability standard which allows for redundancy), two utility-scale energy storage systems, will be placed at either end of the two operational transmission lines. Obviating the cost of operating the third line while rarely using it, if ever, could enable greater efficiency being wrung from existing power transmission infrastructure.

“Upgrades could be a billion dollars, or multiple billons of dollars. Putting storage at either end of it, could help you ride through the condition at a much lower cost and then that could be relocated to another place if and when it becomes sensible to [physically] upgrade that line,” Zahurancik said, adding that this could happen in “places where we have limitations on the use of the transmission lines and its’ difficult to upgrade or investment is so ‘lumpy’.”