German premiere: first “Wind + Storage” innovation project to be implemented shortly

juwi is set­ting up the only “Wind + Stor­age” project of the nation­wide inno­va­tion ten­der in Bran­den­burg / Ham­burg-based CEE Group acquires project includ­ing PPA con­tract with MVV Trad­ing GmbH

A mile­stone project for the Ger­man ener­gy tran­si­tion will be built around 100 kilo­me­ters north­east of Berlin in the Randow­tal munic­i­pal­i­ty (Uck­er­mark). Juwi, the Wörrstadt-based spe­cial­ist for project devel­op­ment and oper­a­tions man­age­ment, is about to build two mul­ti-megawatt-class wind tur­bines and a bat­tery stor­age facil­i­ty in the Schmölln II wind farm with­in the next few weeks. In Sep­tem­ber 2020 the com­pa­ny won a bid for this inno­v­a­tive project in the Fed­er­al Net­work Agency’s first nation­wide inno­va­tion ten­der. Until now, it is the only “Wind + Stor­age” project of this kind in Ger­many. The elec­tric­i­ty is reim­bursed with a fixed mar­ket bonus as well as with a so-called Pow­er Pur­chase Agree­ment (PPA) that juwi devel­oped joint­ly with MVV Trad­ing GmbH. Project and PPA has now been acquired by Ham­burg-based CEE Group.

“We are delight­ed that we suc­cess­ful­ly secured the project thanks to our ten­der­ing exper­tise,” empha­sizes juwi board mem­ber Dr. Stephan Küßner. “The award for the wind ener­gy stor­age com­bi­na­tion indi­cates our inno­v­a­tive approach­es to the grid inte­gra­tion of renew­able ener­gies.”

The CEE Group, asset man­ag­er for renew­able ener­gies and buy­er of the project, also con­sid­ers this com­bi­na­tion an impor­tant next step for the ener­gy tran­si­tion. Detlef Schreiber, CEO of the CEE Group, explains: “Secu­ri­ty of sup­ply and grid sta­bil­i­ty are key chal­lenges in the ener­gy tran­si­tion. The inter­ac­tion of ener­gy gen­er­a­tion and ener­gy stor­age with­in one renew­able ener­gy project indi­cates a solu­tion for this par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge. For that rea­son, we decid­ed ear­ly on to acquire this project from juwi with a suit­able PPA from MVV Trad­ing. We have a long­stand­ing, extreme­ly suc­cess­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion with juwi, which is con­tin­ued in this inno­v­a­tive project. ”

The on-site infra­struc­ture is cur­rent­ly being pre­pared for the con­struc­tion of the two Ves­tas V136 wind tur­bines, each with an installed capac­i­ty of 3.6 megawatts. The sys­tem com­po­nents are to be deliv­ered and installed from mid-Novem­ber, so that com­mis­sion­ing can take place by Jan­u­ary 2022. While this part of the project is more of a rou­tine activ­i­ty for the more than 25-year-old juwi group, the con­struc­tion of the addi­tion­al stor­age unit is unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry in Ger­many. Planned is a lithi­um-ion stor­age unit with a capac­i­ty of almost three megawatt hours from Smart Pow­er and the cor­re­spond­ing mea­sure­ment and con­trol tech­nol­o­gy. The com­po­nents will be inte­grat­ed into a con­tain­er (1 x 40 feet) and a 20-foot frame for the pow­er sta­tion. “With this solu­tion we are able to feed the elec­tric­i­ty more con­sis­tent­ly into the grid than before, espe­cial­ly in times of low wind,” Frank Elbers, juwi project man­ag­er, explains. The stor­age facil­i­ty will be built towards the end of the wind tur­bine con­struc­tion phase. The com­mis­sion­ing of the stor­age facil­i­ty is sched­uled after the com­mis­sion­ing of the wind tur­bines.

Not only the tech­ni­cal con­cept is inno­v­a­tive. When it comes to project financ­ing, juwi is also break­ing new ground with its par­ent com­pa­ny MVV and its part­ner CEE Group. In addi­tion to the fixed mar­ket bonus that juwi secured for a peri­od of 20 years as part of the inno­va­tion ten­der in Sep­tem­ber 2020, the future oper­a­tor CEE Group also ben­e­fits from the Pow­er Pur­chase Agree­ment (PPA), which juwi and MVV offer for an ini­tial peri­od of ten years. “In addi­tion to sev­er­al post-EEG pow­er pur­chase agree­ments and numer­ous PPAs abroad, this is already the sec­ond Ger­man project with PPAs for us,” empha­sizes Fred­erik Faißt, Head of Project Financ­ing at juwi AG.

MVV Trad­ing acquires the elec­tric­i­ty from the wind park devel­oped by juwi and takes over the mar­ket­ing of the flex­i­bil­i­ty that comes from the addi­tion­al bat­tery stor­age oper­at­ed by CEE at a guar­an­teed fixed price over the PPA’s ten-year term. “The mar­ket­ing of wind pow­er over a peri­od of 10 years as part of a PPA pos­es spe­cial chal­lenges for an ener­gy trad­er. And to imple­ment this in com­bi­na­tion with a mar­ket­ing solu­tion for the flex­i­bil­i­ty from an asso­ci­at­ed bat­tery stor­age sys­tem was a very spe­cial chal­lenge”, says Ste­fan Sew­ck­ow, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of MVV Trad­ing. Sew­ck­ow con­tin­ues: “We are proud to be able to con­tribute to the suc­cess of the ener­gy tran­si­tion with this prod­uct solu­tion.”

The debt financ­ing for the project was tak­en over by The Berlin­er Volks­bank.

The project part­ners juwi, CEE Group and MVV Trad­ing will sign the con­tracts for the project on Sep­tem­ber 15th from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the joint booth of MVV, juwi and Wind­wärts in Hall 4, Booth 4C10, and will also respond to ques­tions after­wards.

From Sep­tem­ber 14th to 17th, inter­est­ed par­ties will find juwi, MVV and Wind­wärts at their joint stand in Hall 4, Stand 4C10.