Electricity and Control April 2020

ENERGY MANAGEMENT + THE INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT

Intelligent energy storage system produced in South Africa BlueNova Energy (part of the JSE-listed Reunert Group) in February launched the first grid- scale intelligent Energy Storage System (iESS) produced in South Africa – the MegaBoy.This is a containerised iESS designed to be cost-effective, safe, easy to transport, scalable, and to be integrated to the specific energy needs of clients. CEO, JamesVerster responded to some questions from Electricity + Control on the new energy storage system.

A s a compact building block, the MegaBoy has a 250 kW power output with 1 000 kWh installed stored energy and is scalable to provide more than 250 MW output power with 1 GWh installed energy capacity. It is an efficient, reliable and smart power and energy storage system, designed for both off-grid (including micro- grids) and grid-connected applications, to provide for load shifting, peak shaving, grid stabilisation, and backup power during grid failures, among other functions. It can be powered by multiple sources – the grid, a generator, wind or solar – and can be scaled for use in residential, commercial and industrial applications as well as in charging stations for electric vehicles. Built into an ISO container, 2.4 m x 6.0 m x 2.8 m (shipping height) and weighing 14 tonnes as a finished unit, the iESS is equipped with a battery storage converter, an energy management system (EMS) developed in-house by BlueNova, and a lithium iron phosphate (LiFeYPO4) battery pack, which can store up to 1 MWh of energy.

The units are manufactured following the UL 9540A test method standard, guaranteeing a 10-year commitment to performance excellence (subject to OEM and BlueNova conditions). Verster points out that the cells BlueNova uses in its LiFeYPO4 battery pack differ from others in that they contain yttrium, which protects the cathodes against accelerated degradation, especially in ambient temperatures higher than 25°C. “This ensures that we can guarantee not only 5 000 cycles at 80% depth of discharge, but also at least 80% capacity retention at the end of this period.” In terms of scalability of the system, Verster says for grid-connected applications the iESS can be paralleled ad infinitum . For off-grid applications, the maximum number of units that can be paralleled is 40, which translates into 20 MW of power and 40 MWh of storage. Key features of BlueNova’s intelligent energy storage system are the energy management system – to optimise energy efficiencies and cost management – and the remote

New technologies are tackling the global challenges of energy management and energy storage.

12 Electricity + Control APRIL 2020