Case Studies

EDF is one of the largest utility companies in Europe. At EDF’s invitation, Stornetic installed a DuraStor fast power storage at their R&D site (concept grid) in France.

The purpose of this installation was to jointly develop and demonstrate the benefits of flywheel technologies for a range of applications:

1. Fast Power Management

The DuraStor was integrated into EDF’s power management system, where it demonstrated its ability to deliver fast reaction power, as a way of compensating high-power transients.

• Smoothing of high transient renewable solar and wind power sources
• Reduction of transient power ramp loads, to match to utility limit constraints and avoid utility-induced shutdowns and grid overload decoupling
• Continuous power load balancing. Intelligent power management balances residual loads from volatile power demands (e.g. industrial processes) and unpredictable renewable sources. DuraStor continuously compensates for any mismatch

“Stornetic’s DuraStor proved that it could remove strong power fluctuations coming from the PV farm. Power at the coupling point can be managed, achieving both SoC management and DSO requirements. This makes it easy to integrate on large scale PV production and reduce the stress on grid networks.”

2. Frequency Regulation on Microgrids

With its ability to measure high dynamic ROCOF (rate of change of frequency), DuraStor demonstrated it could significantly stabilise island and microgrids. This was achieved by pairing a 120kW DuraStor to an existing 320 kWp Genset and 50 kWp PV.

3. Microgrid Scenarios

A typical microgrid scenario was implemented using DuraStor as a central key device, where it dynamically controlled power flow and enabled uninterrupted transition into local island mode. The DuraStor controls and stabilises the grid frequency and voltage.

Whereas EDF’s central energy management system (EMS) handles grid status and asset operation, the complex power flow, frequency and voltage control is managed by DuraStor.

This experiment clearly demonstrated that microgrid setups can reliably operate with high power quality and secure supply, by using DuraStor fast power storage. No expensive communication interfaces or interstitial measures are required.

Using DuraStor, the microgrid can be dynamically disconnected and resynchronised with a main distribution grid without voltage drop or power loss. This makes it ideal for industrial site applications which aim to operate independently or semi-independently from the public utility grid.

4. Hybridisation with Battery Storage Systems

In this application, EDF used DuraStor’s fast power and fast reaction time capabilities to minimise high power ramp and cycle stress from battery systems. DuraStor’s fast control architecture significantly reduced the recorded battery stress in this exercise. Furthermore, it fully compensated any charge/discharge micro cycling, thereby enabling delivering longer battery lifetimes.

With the hybridisation concepts combining short flywheel power storage and mid-term battery energy storage significant synergy effects can be realised to expand typical storage life span and commercial business cases.