PGE Energia Odnawialna, the company responsible for the renewable energy sources (RES) segment in the PGE Group, has launched another energy storage unit. The unit, with a capacity of 500 kW and a usable capacity of 750 kWh, is located near Żar in the Silesian province next to the company’s photovoltaic farm and pumped storage power plant.

With the new project, subsidised by the National Centre for Research and Development, PGE wants to verify the possibility of providing system and flexibility services to stabilise and regulate the operation of medium-voltage distribution networks using lithium-ion energy storage. The storage is prepared for unmanned operation and equipped with remote monitoring and control systems.

PGE commissioned its first energy storage facility with a capacity of 2.1 MW and a usable capacity of 4.2 MWh in December 2020 in Rzepedzi, in the Podkarpacie region. Now another, slightly smaller unit has been commissioned, with a capacity of 500 kW and a usable capacity of 750 kWh.

“We are consistently implementing our energy storage programme. Just three months after the announcement of the PGE Group Strategy, in December 2020, we commissioned Poland’s first modular energy storage facility in Rzepedz in the Podkarpacie region. The investment in Żar is another project of this type”, says Wojciech Dąbrowski, President of PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna.

The construction of energy storage facilities is necessary, due to the rapid development of renewable energy sources in Poland – in 2021, when the installed capacity of photovoltaics increased by 2,431 MW to 3,960 MW, including 2,000 MW from prosumer installations, and wind power plants by 251 MW to 6,402 MW. RES are not sources of energy with fixed availability – their production is dependent on changing weather conditions. In addition, they are often connected to medium- and low-voltage networks, which poses a major technological and operational challenge for electricity system operators.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński