Younicos has signed an agreement to deliver a megawatt-scale battery storage system to Austin Energy, as part of a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded initiative known as the Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar PV (SHINES) project.
Younicos will collaborate with the project’s prime contractor, Doosan GridTech, to install the 1.75 MW / 3.2 MWh system using the company’s innovative Y.Cube systems. They will be managed by Younicos’s Y.Q software platform, communicating with the Doosan GridTech Intelligent Controller using the MESA (Modular Energy Storage Architecture) open standard. The seven Y.Cubes and Y.Converters represent the company’s largest Y.Cube deployment in the U.S. to date.
The Y.Cube systems will provide storage capabilities as part of a Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) that will maintain grid reliability while also enabling energy loads to be delivered at the lowest possible cost with high penetration levels of distributed PV generation. The platform, called DG-DERO™, also provided by Doosan GridTech, will use multiple advanced control methodologies that will be demonstrated and evaluated using a fleet of diverse DER assets deployed at various locations among Austin Energy’s customers.
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In addition to optimizing battery performance in combination with solar PV, a key requirement of the project is compliance with strict safety standards. The battery system will be located in a neighborhood in East Austin, coexisting near both residential and commercial buildings. The Y.Cube, which has been optimized for use in commercial and industrial battery storage applications, is a plug-and-play system that also contains multiple thermal management subsystems for maximum safety.
“We’re keeping Austin weird – and energized,” said Stephen L. Prince, CEO of Younicos. “The SHINES project is the perfect showcase for an alternative, distributed energy system with resources like energy storage providing resiliency and security. Our Y.Cube is ideal for this application – offering the best in battery storage, intelligent control, system performance and safety in a compact form factor. We’re very pleased to partner with Austin Energy and Doosan GridTech on this innovative project.”
“Integrating energy storage with solar is becoming essential as we achieve our utility’s goal of 55% renewable energy by 2025,” says Karl Popham, Austin SHINES Principal Investigator and Manager of Emerging Technologies at Austin Energy. “The Austin SHINES program is more than a technical pilot; it is phase one of a larger rollout to maximize the value of distributed energy resources for our customers and the utility. Ultimately, it’s about clean energy being even more affordable and reliable.”
Daejin Choi, CEO of Doosan GridTech commented, “We are pleased to be working with Younicos on this breakthrough project. The Modular Energy Storage Architecture (MESA) open standard provides the software architecture that allows us each to bring our innovation to Austin Energy without a lot of custom engineering to fit the pieces together. Austin preserves choice in their system moving forward and we each get to focus on our core competencies.”
— Solar Builder magazine
[source: http://solarbuildermag.com/news/younicos-delivers-mw-scale-storage-system-austin-energy/]
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