Water Battery Pilot Project

Location: Gaildorf, Germany

Type: Hybrid

Status: Operational

Year of establishment: 2014

Installed Capacity: 716 MWe

Project Description

A pilot project of how the Water Battery work in the future, it is located in a town close to Stuttgart in Germany. The foundations of the four powerful wind turbine generators will be used as upper reservoir for this purpose. At times when the wind blows strongly, surplus renewable energy is often generated that cannot be fed into the public electricity grid or stored. Instead, the energy production is throttled back and the wind turbines are shut down. In the pilot project in Gaildorf, on the other hand, the electricity is temporarily stored in the upper basin.

Purpose/Application

The turbines are connected via an underground penstock to a pumped-storage hydro power station in the valley that can generate up to 16 MW in power. The electric storage capacity of this power plant is estimated to be about 70 MWh.

Unique Aspect

The project is a combination of the world's tallest wind turbines, with a pumped storage system, of which upper reservoirs are located in the basis of the towers and a lower reservoir lies in a valley.