Finnish Olion to supply heat pumps for China’s largest battery energy storage project
Olion, the Finnish energy, and environmental technology company will provide heat pumps for a battery energy storage farm in Dalian, North-eastern China.
Dalian Henliu Energy Storage Power Station Company Ltd’s battery farm is a demonstration project approved by the Chinese government to test the functionality of vanadium batteries connected to the power grid. Olion’s heat pumps will be used to cool the batteries being installed and once complete and online, the battery farm will have peak power capacity of 200MW and an electricity storage capacity of 800MWh.
The Dalian battery farm is claimed to become the largest battery energy storage farm in China and one of the largest in the world. The farm consists of large vanadium redox flow batteries and the energy storage capacity is based on ion reactions of the electrolyte solution flowing inside the batteries.
The project will extract electricity from the batteries when there is no wind and this flexibility to the grid helps integrate more wind energy. In China peaking power is typically produced with fossil fuel but the battery farm will cut CO2 by curtailing the peaking power requirements in the area by eight percent.
To Smart Energy, Ville Pekkola, CEO of Oilon China, said: “It is exciting to be involved in this giant project that will reduce local CO2 emissions and help to integrate more renewable energy. We expect strong growth in China and international heat-pump markets. China’s largest battery farm is a great example of how China’s government is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2060. Battery farms bring much-needed flexibility to the Chinese power grid where the capacity of variable wind and solar energy is growing rapidly. Storing electricity is key to increasing clean energy overall. Similar battery farms will be needed everywhere. This means an immense potential for heat pumps.”
Source: scandasia
