Biogas plant flexibility: could a battery replace a costly extra CHP unit?
German farming portal agrarheute describes the "Flex 2.0" concept, in which a battery storage system helps biogas plants become flexible without buying additional CHP units. The battery shifts electricity feed-in to economically more attractive time windows.
Biogas plant operators in Germany who have to make their plants flexible often face very large investments. On 31 October, the agricultural portal agrarheute published a piece on a possible way to avoid part of that cost: a battery storage system that can make additional BHKW units unnecessary. A BHKW is a combined heat and power unit, which turns biogas into electricity and heat.
Timing matters as much as volume
The revenue of a biogas plant depends not only on how much electricity it generates, but increasingly also on when that power is fed into the grid. This is the starting point of the "Flex 2.0" concept. In it, the BHKW keeps producing electricity continuously, while a battery storage system shifts the feed-in to economically more attractive time windows.
Additional marketing options
The battery's fast response can also open up further ways to market the power. Which markets come into question, and what advantages battery storage has over a classic BHKW-based flexibility upgrade, is explained by the article's authors, Alfons Himmelstoß and Sophia Rögner of AEV Energy.
The source text available is abridged, so it gives no specific calculations, cost comparisons or market names. The full article is accessible to agrarheute readers only with ad blockers disabled or through the publisher's paid offering.
