Collective battery storage for balcony power plants and smaller photovoltaic systems

Abstract

Renewable energies are being massively expanded in this country. Most of the electricity generated by wind turbines and photovoltaic systems is fed directly into the grid. Containing and regulating overcapacities, especially of photovoltaics on sunny days, particularly at midday, is urgently needed, as is avoiding undercapacities to ensure grid security, since otherwise a so-called brownout – a controlled shutdown of entire distribution networks – might be necessary. This patent application relates to the integration of balcony power plants and smaller photovoltaic systems into the grid: These so-called balcony power plants, i.e., micro-photovoltaic systems of very small dimensions for private households, and also smaller photovoltaic systems on rooftops of houses or on the roofs of commercial and agricultural buildings, among others.Balcony power plants or smaller photovoltaic systems are increasingly posing a major problem for electricity grid operators because the amount and timing of their generation are completely unpredictable. The invention described here helps to reduce, if not eliminate, both of the aforementioned problems of insufficient or excessive electricity production by balcony power plants or smaller photovoltaic systems—in extreme cases, the problem of periods of low wind and solar output. Several, multiple, or many balcony power plants or smaller photovoltaic systems, located close to one (or several interconnected) larger collective battery storage units (e.g., 9 to 150 kWh), are connected via power lines. The collective battery storage unit is then connected to the local power grid via power lines. This collective battery storage unit can then be controlled by the local power grid operator and, depending on demand, fed into the grid.Individual power distribution lines can be connected, either for feeding in or for storage. Collective battery storage systems are much easier to control, regulate, and integrate into the power grid than any individual balcony power plant or small battery storage system on its own.