Vereinigte Wertach-Elektrizitätswerke (VWEW) introduces battery storage system from Smart Power

The storage facility we built at VWEW in Leinau was officially inaugurated on May 25, 2022 as part of a festive ceremony. The commissioning will strengthen independent, secure and climate-friendly power generation in the Allgäu region.

Among the invited guests were well-known politicians such as Dr. Andreas Lenz (CSU spokesman for energy and sustainability in the Bundestag), Ludwig Hartmann (parliamentary group leader of the Greens in the Bavarian state parliament), Stefan Bosse (Chairman of the VWEW Supervisory Board and Mayor of Kaufbeuren).

The storage facility built by Smart Power consists of six 20-foot high cube containers, with three containers housing the batteries in a total of 48 racks and the remaining three containers housing the inverters and transformers.

The battery containers are climate-controlled insulated containers in order to treat the batteries as gently as possible and thus guarantee a long service life.

The plant has a total capacity of 3.6 MWh and an output of 7.2 MW. From a performance perspective, this means that around 240 households can be supplied. With a total of 8.7 MVA, the three inverters have a higher capacity than the batteries, which means that reactive power can be provided, for example.

The hydropower plant at the Leinau site currently supplies up to 12,000 households with electricity. In addition to hydropower, there are 5 diesel generators on the company premises, which were installed in 1978. However, these are not suitable for primary control power due to the short time requirements. The Smart Power storage system is the perfect addition for bridging this gap.