The 'Store' project, in which the companies Endesa, Televent, Isotrol and Ingeteam involved, is the largest project of its kind in Europe island environments, and its main objective is to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of storage systems large-scale energy.
Electricity we have at home or at work, we use to give the light switch, turn on the microwave or put the dishwasher is being generated at that moment in a power plant, then travels through the transmission and distribution and it is directly consumed by the customer. Although there are methods of storage, so far its implementation on a large scale was not feasible due to its high cost, among other reasons.
Canary Islands
On a small scale if they could store energy in a battery (a car, or as part of a PV system in a house), yet it was not viable to build a battery that could power a whole city, according to spokesmen for the project. "We have shown that it is possible to store surplus electricity with renewable energy. And this helps the electrical system and is also beneficial to the environment," says Juan Carlos Ballesteros, deputy director of R & D of Endesa. "All the technology and power electronics is national. We are very proud of this project," he says.
The project promotes the full integration of renewable energies, as the electrical energy storage can extend the operational capacity of these energies for 24 hours a day, regardless of the specific needs of the system. According to Jose Luis Garcia Fierro, research professor at the Center for Scientific Research (CSIC), is a project with "an extraordinary relevance. During the night we turbines that produce electricity because the wind blows at that time. But now there is little electricity consumption and we have excess power. Therefore, designing an alternative to accumulate that excess is extraordinarily important, "he says.
Store has been a pioneering project in Spain in research on energy storage in island environments was launched in 2008. In early 2014, were already implemented the first three floors of stored electrical energy are integrated into the network electricity in Spain in Endesa generation facilities in the Canary Islands, specifically in La Gomera, La Palma and Gran Canaria.
Precisely the latter, Gran Canaria, has the largest storage capacity and can function as a group of manageable generation, whose loading and unloading can be scheduled daily. These batteries could supply about 1,000 homes for 5 hours.
The choice of the Canary Islands to develop this project was key, since it attempts to answer the problems that present the systems on the islands, where the network stability is more affected by generation technologies unmanaged, as is the case of renewables.
