China’s SGCC and BYD launch world’s largest battery energy storage station

ZHANGBEI, CHINA: BYD and the State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) have finished construction on what may be the world’s largest battery energy storage station. This large utility-scale project, located in Zhangbei, Hebei Province, combines 140 Mega-Watts of renewable energy generation (both wind and solar), 36 Mega-Watt-Hours (MWh) of energy storage and a smart power transmission system.

While there are renewable generation systems of this scale in service today, there are no battery systems of this size. The State Grid system is demonstrating a stable solution for transferring vast amounts of renewable electricity safely to the grid on an unprecedented scale. Although BYD manufactures 1GW of solar panels annually, their role in this project was primarily providing energy storage batteries in arrays larger than a football field.

SGCC chose BYD’s Iron-Phosphate battery technology because of its superior service life (over 20 years) and also used BYD’s “peak shaving and load leveling” charge and discharge methodologies. BYD’s announcement September 30th, 2011, “China’s Largest and First Environmentally-friendly Battery Storage Station,” was the first of many MegaWatt-level cooperative projects with China’s Southern Power Grid (CSG).

This new project with the State Grid has outpaced other grid projects in China and, though independently designed by SGCC, is part of the national “Golden Sun” program. The first phase investment with 100MW of Wind, 40MW of Solar and 36MWh of Battery is worth over $500 million (~3.3 billion RMB).

“The large-scale implementation of clean and green energy, such as wind and solar power, can only be realized when the technical difficulties of this new energy application in the utility system are resolved,” said Xiu Binglin, deputy director of the National Energy Administration. “This State Grid project demonstrates a solution and will be the model of development for China’s new energy resources.”

BYD’s battery energy storage system provides a solution for the realization of energy storage in the smart grid that improves renewable energy efficiency by 5-10 percent.

He Long, VP of BYD, said, “BYD is honored to cooperate with China and SGCC to build this large energy storage station and to make a contribution in the utilization of renewable energy resources.”