It is thought to be the world’s largest battery energy storage station – and its construction has now been completed in China.
The utility-scale project in Zhangbei Hebei Province has been led by BYD and the State Grid Corporation of China. It combines 140MW of renewable energy generation with a smart power transmission system and 36MWh of energy storage.
According to the partners, there are currently no battery systems of this size. The idea is to demonstrate a stable solution for transferring vast amounts of renewable electricity safely to the grid. BYD was involved predominantly by providing energy storage batteries in arrays that are larger than a football field – the company manufactures around 1GW of solar panels annually.
The iron-phosphate battery technology from BYD was picked out because of its superior service life – which is more than 20 years.
Part of the Golden Sun programme, the State Grid project has outpaced similar projects and has been announced as China’s largest and first environmentally friendly battery storage station. The first phase of its investment is worth more than US$500million with 100MW of wind, 40MW of solar and 36MWh of battery power.
